“He at all times advised me about these huge, lovely tiger trout that lived there”
Kaleb Nelson with the 32-inch tiger trout that set a brand new Utah state file. <p>{Photograph} courtesy Kaleb Nelson</p>
Kaleb Nelson has fished Scofield Reservoir southeast of Salt Lake Metropolis for many of his life. He’d at all times recognized in regards to the lake as a result of he’d heard his grandfather speak about it when he was a child.
“My grandpa, Brent Nelson, grew up in Clear Creek close to Scofield Reservoir, and he at all times advised me about these huge, lovely tiger trout that lived there,” Kaleb tells Outside Life. “So, a pair buddies and I made a decision to ice fish there final December.”
Nelson had fished the lake throughout each summer season and winter, and he knew it effectively sufficient to have a fairly good thought of the place the trout could be holding. On Dec. 9, he and his mates drilled 4 holes over a grassy backside in roughly six ft of water. Nelson’s buddies every picked a gap to fish by means of whereas he used two completely different jigging rods to alternate between the 2 different holes.
“I had a heavy ice spinning rod arrange, and a light-tackle one,” says Nelson, a 22-year-old development mission engineer who lives in Value. “I used to be simply swimming a 3-inch-long white tube jig above some backside weeds with the sunshine outfit, and wham — I obtained a success.”
He fought the fish for round half-hour and had a fairly good feeling it was huge tiger trout — a hybrid species that’s a cross between a brown trout and a brook trout. Preventing a heavy fish for that lengthy is hard on deal with as the road wears on the sharp edges of the ice, however Nelson says the 10-pound braid he was utilizing held up through the battle. The trout took about half of that line off his spinning reel throughout considered one of its longer runs, and when Nelson lastly noticed the trout, he wasn’t positive he’d have the ability to land it.
“Once I obtained the fish close to the underside of the 8-inch diameter ice gap I used to be frightened it wouldn’t match. However my mates had been there to assist me, so we pulled it by means of. Then we simply began laughing and celebrating [because of] how huge it was.”
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The anglers took a number of pictures of the trout and taped it at 32 inches lengthy. Then they pulled the jig from its mouth and launched it into Scofield Reservoir. The fish was out of the water for only some minutes and swam away wholesome, Nelson says.
Though they by no means weighed the fish, the anglers estimated it was round 10 kilos. They stored fishing by means of the afternoon, catching and releasing a dozen smaller tiger trout. Utah rules enable anglers to maintain up two tiger trout per day, with just one over 22 inches, however Nelson says he’s at all times put the fish again.
{Photograph} courtesy Kaleb Nelson
“They’re simply extremely lovely, which is why we launch them.”
And because the Utah Division of Wildlife Assets maintains a catch-and-release class in its fishing information guide, he was nonetheless capable of ship in an software to the company for a brand new state file. (This included pictures exhibiting the trout’s measurements and written verification from a witness.) The DWR introduced the catch’s certification Tuesday. Nelson’s 32-inch fish was sufficiently big to switch the standing file, however simply barely. It was simply half an inch longer than the earlier catch-and-release file caught in 2022.
Learn Subsequent: State-File Tiger Trout Disqualified As a result of Angler Didn’t Have a Fishing License
The DWR maintains a separate listing of “catch and preserve” information, and the standing file in that class measured over 37 inches lengthy and weighed 19 kilos 2 ounces. That tiger trout was additionally caught from Scofield Reservoir. For comparability, the IGFA all-tackle world file for the species weighed 27 kilos 6 ounces and was set a pair years in the past by an angler in Washington State.
“I’ll have a duplicate mount made from the fish, and can get pleasure from wanting that huge, lovely trout for a very long time to return,” Nelson says. “My grandpa loves them too, and he was extra excited than anybody about my catch.”
