09/04/2019
Holy cow!
Congratulations to Bill Babler for landing the NEW state record brown trout today! 40.4lbs - 41.25" long - 28" girth.
Bill, a fishing guide on Taneycomo for over 20 years, caught it on a Berkley pink Powerworm just below the mouth of Fall Creek, upper Lake Taneycomo. He was using 6x tippet, or less than 4-pound line.
Note: Lake water quality in September is poor. Dissolved oxygen levels are low and water temperatures are high. Big fish like this one are under stress just surviving, not to mention being hooked. This fish didn't fight at all. It swam around the boat a couple of times before being netted. It immediately started showing signs of distress.
The only part of the fish's body that would fit in the live well was the head. It was transferred to a tank at the dock. To be officially weighed, an official scale was on the property but could not be on the dock because it is unstable. The fish was carried to the scale but even by the time it was taken, stress lines and marks were appearing on the fish and it was evident it would not make it.
We have had many big browns and rainbows brought to the dock to be weighed and released. True, it would be optimal for any trophy trout to be released immediately released after being caught and in some cases that's the only way the fish will survive. But unfortunately that's not reality in most cases. We do the best we can with each catch. In this brown trout case, she was dead when she ate the pink worm. And obviously, she was at the end of her life cycle.
