Angler Tim Daniel had no idea he would be making history when he went fishing at Monarch Lake in Grand County, Colorado last spring.
“I wasn’t sure what I had hooked, but I knew it was big,” Daniel said in a Colorado Parks and Wildlife news release on July 29.
Little did Daniel know, it was record-breaking big.
“When I headed out to fish that day with my friend Karen and four-legged friend Moose, I had no intention of breaking a record,” Daniel said.
Daniel, who has been fishing in the waters of Northwest Colorado for years, reeled in a Brook Trout on May 23 that weighed in at 7.84 pounds, according to wildlife officials.
This catch shattered the previously held weight record from 1947, a 7.63 pound Brook Trout caught in Upper Cataract Lake in Summit County, officials said.
The fish caught by Daniel on May 23 measured 23 1/4 inches in length and had a girth of 15 3/8 inches.
When asked where he caught the fish and what he used, he responded: “in the water and with a hook,” officials said.
Jon Ewert, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Aquatic Biologist, said the record-breaking catch couldn’t have gone to a “more deserving angler,” according to the news release.
“He’s just one of those guys that is always out there on the water and as a result, has an intimate knowledge of the subtle details necessary to be so successful,” Ewert said.
The Brook Trout, which can grow from 11 to 23 inches long, belongs to the “char genus of the trout and salmon family,” wildlife officials said. It’s also known as a speckled trout.
“It is a beautifully colored fish with pink or red spots surrounded by blue halos along the sides and a distinctive marbled pattern over an olive-green back,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife said.
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