Tulsa World Reported 1st: A Sallisaw Middle School teacher and self-taught fly fisherman likely is holder of the new state-record rainbow trout for Oklahoma — and it is an accidental fish at that. Paul Glover coaxed the big fish to the shore of the Lower Illinois River on Saturday morning using a relatively spindly 5-weight fly rod and 2-pound-test leader. The fish, 29 3/16 inches long with a girth of 16 9/16 inches, weighed a whopping 11 pounds 4.32 ounces according to the angler’s signed and witnessed affidavit.
The existing state record rainbow trout weighs 10-10.56 and was caught in November 2013 at Lake Watonga by Mark B. Reed.
The paperwork on Glover’s catch still has to be formally approved by state biologists and administrators, but in this case — with the measuring and weighing on certified scales witnessed by game wardens — the odds it will be certified are high.
Jim Burroughs, streams supervisor for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, said he had yet to see the paperwork Saturday but had heard about the catch.
“It’s a fair bet at this point,” he said.
“I just got lucky today,” said Glover, who grew up in Tulsa. “Normally I would have been bass fishing.”
He said he and his wife have been catching sand bass at Tenkiller Lake lately, but Saturday morning his wife wasn’t interested in going, with the temperature in the 30-degree range.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t get to fish very long because it was the second fish I caught,” Glover said. “I didn’t know what to do with it. I haven’t kept a trout in years. I normally let them go, but this looked like a state record, so I decided to keep it.”
Glover, a seventh-grade geography teacher, said he has fished the Lower Illinois for 25 years as a favorite mid-winter and summertime haunt. He caught the fish in one of his favorite holes, at the bottom of a long pool below the dam. He used a micro-jig that he ties himself. The jig has a 1/80th ounce gold head, and he dresses it with yellow and black marabou. He used a strike indicator — a small float — to drift the jig about mid-column through the 5-foot-deep hole.
“It was a good fight,” he said. “It took about 15 minutes. It didn’t jump out of the water but it fought hard … I always kind of dreamed about catching a state record down there.”
He said he was glad he caught it on a fly rod. Years ago he used spinning gear but watched others using fly rods and switched. Read on…..