On 8th February this year, retired navy captain Rob Scott, from Minnesota caught a 4-pound Lake Trout (actually a species of char, not a trout — Salvelinus namaycush) while hand-lining through ice on Lac la Croix, on the Minnesota/Ontario border. Shortly afterwards, he was checked by an Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources officer who recorded the fact that Rob had kept his one permitted lake trout — the Ontario provincial limit. Ironically, if the retired captain had been just a short distance away, on the same lake, he would have still been in Minnesota and would have been allowed to keep two lake trout, and — as you will see below — on this occasion this matters.
Retired navy captain Rob Scott and his 52-pound, world-record Lake Trout. February 2014
The problem came later that day when Rob hooked a second fish, which — at 52 pounds 3 ounces — was not only a new world record for lake trout but was a mind-boggling 77 percent larger than the previous, 18-year-old record of 29 pounds 6 ounces!
According to the book ‘Freshwater Gamefish of North America’, by Peter Thompson, the average weight of a lake trout is just 4-10 pounds, so at 52 pounds he probably thought he’d hooked a stray submarine! In lake trout terms, it was a behemoth.
All went well until the same Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources officer who had checked the 4-pound fish saw a subsequent newspaper report about the enormous laker, and regrettably this started an official ball rolling. As a result, a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources officer confiscated the record-breaking fish from a Duluth taxidermist, and it was then destined to be handed over to Ontario officials.
As a retired police officer myself, I am very aware that rules are rules, and all that sort of stuff, but I really would like to ask Ontario officials just what they think they have actually achieved on this occasion, other than perhaps leaving a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people. Of course conservation is crucial, and the majority of fishehrmen I know and fish with would be the first to agree with that belief but in my own opinion, this time around, the Ontario people have scored a PR ‘own goal’ and have little, if anything, to actually be proud of.
Eddie Wren
that is unfortunate for the fisherman. I don’t know fishing, but does that mean, that after he caught the first fish, he should have packed it up and gone home, since he couldn’t catch anymore? I don’t know how it goes, but it doesn’t seem like a fun day if you have to stop after one fish.
I agree, Andrea. I just think that this was such an exceptional scenario that the authorities could have, and should have, simply “turned a blind eye to it.”