Orofino man’s rainbow trout won’t make Idaho record book
Larry Warren of Orofino, Idaho, joined an exclusive club last week when he landed what can only be described as an incredibly large, if not morbidly obese, rainbow trout from the North Fork Clearwater River in the shadow of Dworshak Dam.
The 32-inch trout, with a girth of 28.25 inches, weighed an impressive 28.37 pounds. That would shatter the state record of 20 pounds. But Warren will have to be content with the satisfaction of landing a magnificent fish and forgo the glory of having his name in the Idaho record book.
Under the current rules, Warren comes up short on two points. The first – his fish was not weighed on a certified scale. Instead, Warren weighed the fish using a handheld digital scale.
The weight measurement was taken by his fishing buddy, Ken Bonner of Lewiston, the only witness. That is the second point on which Warren comes up short of Idaho’s rules. The state requires not only the use of a certified scale but also mandates that two people, in addition to the angler, witness the weighing.
Joe DuPont, regional fisheries manager at Lewiston, polled other fish managers in the state on whether to accept the fish into the record book.
“They unanimously said, ‘No, it has to be on a certified scale and it has to be verified,’ ” he said. “In this case, we are not going to allow it, but I fully suspect it was a state record and there wasn’t any lying or anything like that going on.”
Warren did not have the option to harvest his trout so it could be taken to a butcher shop to be weighed – a common practice of anglers looking to make the record book. The North Fork of the Clearwater River below Dworshak Dam is home to steelhead trout, a sea-run version of rainbows, and not open to the harvest of any rainbow longer than 20 inches unless the fish is of hatchery origin, as evidenced by a scar where its adipose fin has been removed.
Warren was fishing with Bonner and targeting the big rainbow that live beneath the dam. The fish are believed to be planted rainbows that escape from Dworshak Reservoir.
Once they reach a certain size, they can lurk just below the dam and feed on kokanee that get flushed through the turbines among other goodies.
Warren made several casts from Bonner’s boat. Eventually he got a take and felt the big fish, which immediately made a 70-yard run upstream.
Warren was using a 5-foot-6-inch rod, with 6-pound test line and a quality reel with a good drag system. It’s light gear for such a big trout, but Warren said he likes that the fine line is difficult for fish to see.
The fight continued for about 15 minutes. The monster made one last run of about 75 yards, after which Warren was able to turn it.