Something Fishy Going On With Record

Lake Pend Oreille anglers are miffed at news that a Montana angler caught a potential world-record trout Monday from the Kootenai River below Libby Dam.

There’s no argument the 33.1-pound rainbow caught by Jack Housel Jr. is a Montana state record.

But world record?

“Everyone knows Lake Pend Oreille has had the world record for decades,” said Tom Mehler, spokesman for the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club.

On Nov. 25, 1947, Wes Hamlet of Coeur d’Alene caught the 37-pound world-record rainbow during a season that put the lake in the international angling spotlight.

“Since the first big Kamloops were taken from the lake in 1945, fish from the ‘big hole’ have been listed every year in (Field & Stream) magazine’s listings of largest fish caught on the continent,” said a 1957 story in The Spokesman-Review. “The banner year was 1947, when Pend Oreille fish took 10 top awards and nine of the 10 honorable mentions. Largest fish that year was the 37-pounder, which still reigns as world champ.”

Hamlet’s fish continues to be listed as Idaho’s largest Kamloops-strain rainbow.

However, the record trout has disappeared from the rankings of the country’s two world-record fish authorities.

The International Game Fish Association, based in Pompano Beach, Fla., lists the all-tackle world-record rainbow as a 42-pounder caught in Bell Island, Alaska, in 1970. Most anglers would consider the fish a steelhead, a sea-run fish that technically is a salmon.

“It’s not fair to classify land-locked rainbows with sea-run rainbows,” Mehler said. “IGFA isn’t consistent on that issue.”

He’s right. IGFA has separate freshwater and saltwater classifications for striped bass, as well as for sockeye salmon and their land-locked cousins, the kokanee, and also for bull trout and their sea-run cousins, the Dolly Varden.

So why not for steelhead and land-locked rainbows?

IGFA spokesmen could not explain this Wednesday.

The other world record keeper, the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward, Wis., has recognized the difference with separate categories for freshwater and sea-run rainbows.

But the largest freshwater rainbow listed is a 31.6 pounder taken from Lake Michigan in 1993.

That’s why Montana fisheries officials have said Housel’s 33-pound Kootenai River rainbow is a potential world record.

Lake Pend Oreille boosters are stunned.

Hamlet’s 37-pounder was perhaps the nation’s most publicized rainbow trout of the 1940s and ‘50s.

The Hall of Fame has been keeping records since 1972. At that time, the Hall took over records that had been compiled for decades by Field & Stream magazine.

Hamlet’s 37-pounder was clearly recognized by Field & Stream in numerous published stories.

But the spokeswoman at the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame could not explain how Hamlet’s record has slipped through the cracks.

With apologies and a tip of the hat to the big fish caught Monday in Montana, the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club is not likely to let their claim to fame disappear with a statistical oversight.

But even within the state of Idaho, the status of Lake Pend Oreille rainbows is debated.

The official list of Idaho record fish has separate categories for Kamloops, rainbow and steelhead - all considered rainbows to most anglers.

Idaho’s record rainbow is listed as a 19-pounder from Hayden Lake.

“It’s biologically ignorant to have a separate classification for Kamloops and rainbows,” Mehler said. “Fish and Game biologists aren’t consistent either. Sometimes they say the rainbows in Lake Pend Oreille are Kamloops strain, sometimes they call them Gerrards.

“With 65 strains of rainbow trout, record keeping is going to be a can of worms if you have separate categories for each one.”

Tom Frew, Idaho Fish and Game Department biologist in Boise, explains: “The Kamloops in Lake Pend Oreille are a unique rainbow that grows to large sizes. That’s why they get their own record class.”

For the time being, though, they’ve been outclassed on the world-record lists.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact Rich Landers by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5508.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review