A monster trout legally harvested by a Lapwai man would crush the existing Idaho state record providing the fish is determined to be a pure rainbow trout. But even if a genetic test proves the fish is a rainbow and not a Kamloops, differences between state and tribal fishing rules will keep him from entering the record book. Tui Moliga of Lapwai, a coho biologist at the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery, was bouncing salmon eggs for chinook below Dworshak Dam recently when he hooked the trout that has grown fat by feeding on kokanee that sometimes flush through the dam.
“Right away I knew it was a good one,” Moliga said. “He came and flashed and I seen it was a trout. There was a lot of words you can’t put in the paper but I was pretty excited.”
He fought the fish for more than 10 minutes, taking care to make sure it didn’t break off.
“He would dive down deep and get in the channel. He was stripping line. We had no net or anything to bring him in. It was pretty sketchy,” he said.
Moliga’s friend, Steve Croomer, was finally able to grab the fish. Realizing it could be a record, they took it to Harvest Foods in Orofino, where it weighed 28 pounds, 9 ounces on a registered scale.
He later took it to Lewiston to have it checked by an Idaho Fish and Game official, one of the prerequisites for record consideration.
There, Regional Fisheries manager Joe DuPont examined the fish and took a fin clip for DNA analysis, describing the fish as “incredibly fat.” Read more….