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Record reel proves short-lived
Media General News Service
This oddly colored rainbow trout was almost mistaken for a state-record Kokanee salmon last week.
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Published: August 7, 2008
It has now been four years since I first visited the beautiful mountain lake known as Nantahala on a fishing trip with my son.
I was aware that the small, deep lake had the only population of a salmon species known as the Kokanee, but I never suspected we would catch one.
As it turned out, we landed three of the beautiful, silver-colored fish.
Not realizing the species — the smallest of the salmon — had never been registered as a state record, we made a great meal of the three fish.
I realized my mistake a few days later and subsequently went on five trips to Nantahala over the next two years, fishing the deep waters of the mountain lake without any success.
While many fishermen had caught Kokanee over the years, no one had registered one. Finally, after two years, I caught another Kokanee. While it was only nine ounces in weight and less than 12 inches long, it was a Kokanee — and a new state record.
My glory was short-lived. The record only lasted one year. Last August, a new record was established three different times. The last and current record is 3.07 pounds by Mark Swann of Black Mountain.
Last week, I made a trip to the lake. Except for getting rained on three times, it was a great day for fishing. We only had four hits, two of which broke the line.
We landed two of the hits, with one of them being a nice, large female Kokanee — or at least that was what we thought.
Getting home with the fish later that night, I used my unofficial scales to weigh it. The scales said 3.5 pounds. I was stunned. While the catch was not official, I knew that even the next morning it would still be a new record.
Sure enough, the fish weighed 3.27 pounds on certified scales.
My next call was to the WRC fisheries biologists who would have to positively identify the fish. I provided the biologists with a good side view photo of my salmon. The biologist took a quick look and acknowledged it as a Kokanee.
Later that afternoon, I got a call from the biologists with a request. As it had turned out, a couple other biologists had looked at the photo and decided it might not be a Kokanee.
While owning the state record would have been nice, it was more important to the biologists — and to me — to not have a misidentified fish going on record.
The fish was placed in the freezer for the weekend. On Monday morning, I delivered it to the biologists. The identification required actually going into its gill area to count and do a size comparison of certain anatomical features to be sure.
In the end, the biologists discovered the Kokanee was actually a strangely colored rainbow trout.
It was a learning experience for everyone involved.
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