Looks like a little fun day of family fishing turned into the catch of a lifetime.
Cathy Clegg of Colbert, Washington was fishing from the dock with nightcrawlers near her family cabin on Loon Lake, when all of a sudden she reeled in a massive 27.42-pound tiger trout, according to Field & Stream.
She recalled the story to the outlet, also mentioning the fight lasted a whopping 10 minutes:
“It took off and pulled my drag out like crazy. It was so much fun, but I was really afraid I was gonna lose (the fish). I was shaking. I was so nervous.”
And it turns out, the 27.42-pounder was enough to earn Clegg an IGFA All-Tackle world record tiger trout.
The tiger trout are a hybrid mixed with a male brook trout and female brown trout, although it’s quite uncommon to see.
Clegg continued:
“The WDFW started planting them about 15 years ago. We would catch little ones. As the years went by, my son caught a 10-pounder, then a 12-pounder, and then a 15-pounder. They get bigger every year.”
Ironically enough Clegg’s son Caylun Peterson caught the current IGFA world record for tiger trout back in 2021, weighing in at 24.49 pounds.
Due to her son’s record, she knew what had to be done after they reeled in the trout. They put it on ice in a YETI cooler, and took it to a tackle shop in Spokane to weigh it on a certified scale.
Clegg’s trout measured at 35.5 inches long with a girth of 28 1/8 inches, and with the 27.42-pound weight, it’s now a state and world record.
Talk about one helluva day on the lake.
