The angler’s 30-minute battle with the fish performed out simply miles upstream of one of many deadliest battlefields in American historical past
Jean-Phillipe Lartigue holds up the brand new Maryland state-record rainbow trout. {Photograph} courtesy Jean-Phillipe Lartigue
Retired fisheries biologist Jean-Phillipe Lartigue caught a fats rainbow trout from Maryland’s Antietam Creek on Saturday. Measuring greater than 30 inches lengthy and weighing 17.44 kilos, Lartigue’s trout shatters the earlier state document — a 14.2-pounder caught in 1987.
Lartigue caught the massive trout from a public stretch of Antietam Creek that flows by way of Satan’s Spine Park in Washington County. Historical past buffs will acknowledge the creek as the positioning of a pivotal battle that occurred through the Civil Warfare. Nonetheless thought of the bloodiest single-day battle in American historical past, the Battle of Antietam was fought simply miles downstream of the county park close to the city of Sharpsburg.
Waging a distinct form of battle altogether, Lartigue fought the enormous trout for half-hour earlier than he was capable of land it on his personal. Whereas the avid stream fisherman has caught large trout everywhere in the world, he says the 17-plus-pound rainbow he landed over the weekend was a distinct animal.
“I’ve caught different large trout to 10 kilos, however this fish was the largest I’ve taken,” Lartigue tells Out of doors Life. “It jumped twice, and I used to be very frightened about dropping it as a result of I used to be utilizing mild 8-pound take a look at line.”
His light-line setup included a specialised 12-foot rod with an additional supple tip paired with a spinning reel. Lartigue added a small break up shot to the 8-pound monofilament chief and used a No. 8 hook baited with an earthworm he’d dug out of his personal yard in Bethesda.
Lartigue is French however he lived and labored as a biologist in Morocco. Fishing in each Europe and northern Africa, he grew to become an knowledgeable on the European approach of dead-drifting flies and pure baits with extra-long rods. These lengthy rods assist anglers management their drifts with extra precision. Their delicate, springy suggestions additionally assist defend mild traces from breaking, which was essential in serving to Lartigue land his record-breaking fish over the weekend.
“I assumed I’d lose it as quickly as I noticed it soar,” he says. “The creek has a number of rocks that it might have lower the road on. There was a bridge over the creek with abutments, so I needed to preserve the trout away from these too … However after a [long] struggle it drained and I used to be capable of transfer the fish into shallow water, wade out, and seize it.”
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As a result of he didn’t have a internet on him, Lartigue actually did need to “seize” the trout, and he lower his fingers on its jaw within the course of. By the point he walked again to his automobile, a crowd of onlookers had already gathered there to gawk on the fats fish. A number of of them shared some recommendation on how you can weigh and measure the trout, so Lartigue contacted the Maryland Division of Pure Sources and introduced his catch to an authorized scale at Ernst’s Nation Market in Clear Spring.
The rainbow trout measured 32 inches lengthy and tipped the scales at 17.44 kilos. The DNR’s director of fisheries John Mullican confirmed these measurements and the company formally declared Lartigue’s fish a brand new state document on Tuesday.
Whereas some anglers might need chosen to mount the fish or get a duplicate made, Lartigue went a distinct route.
“We ate it,” he says, “and it was scrumptious.”
