Golden Dreams

BuKuBass · 12-20-2002, 07:49 PM

Earlier today, MissBeHaven in the "pogey" thread,posted the list of current ODFW records for fish. The stats for golden trout are 7# 10oz.caught by Douglas White in the Eagle Cap Wildnerness in 1987. There aren't that many places in Oregon where golden trout can be caught, indeed, the total biomass of those fish is probably not much more than ten pounds.
In 1983, while I was deer hunting in a hanging valley formed by the East fork of West Eagle Creek, I noticed some trout there and told "DW", as he's known, that I thought that they were goldens. When DW was a teenager he had worked in that country as a packer's helper and called the place where I had been "Hell Hole". Noticing that at that time, ODFW hadn't any listing for golden trout, in 1987 DW went into Hell Hole, kept one fish, packed it on ice and took it into Richland to be weighed. He filled out the form correctly and listed the measurements as weight...seven ounces, length...10 inches. Somehow at the ODFW those numbers were transcribed as 7pounds, ten ounces.
To his credit, DW has twice contacted the ODFW regarding this matter but no corrective action has ever been taken. He has a picture of the fish with his reel and rod handle for scale and if that fish is as big as the ODFW says it is, then that reel must be a rare Mitchell 3,000!

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KingFisher85 · 12-20-2002, 07:54 PM

so what your sayin that fish is only 7 oz and not 7 pounds. that funny

Point-of-Sale Clerk · 12-20-2002, 07:58 PM

Funny

That�s typically how my conversations with ODFW go as well� :grin:

12-20-2002, 07:59 PM

Kind of like Lepers 40 stroke outboard? :grin:

First Light Bite · 12-20-2002, 08:53 PM

I know they put on weight before you get them home (or when your telling stories later).
But that sounds like a big stretch even for ODFW.

But they sure are pretty fish caught a few in Idaho years ago.

lightline · 12-20-2002, 11:10 PM

In my younger days I walked into a lake just to say that I had caught a golden trout, and they were around ten inches. A year or two later I was fly fishing on the north fork of the middle fork of the willamete up box canyon and caught a golden trout I have no ideal why it was there although it must have got caught in the tank that just planted goldens it was around 12 inches. I see in the world records that the largest golden trout in the IGFA freshwater was caught in cooks lake.Wyo. in 1948 at 11.0 OZS It doesn't show a picture with the reel and handle. Hmmm.

OceanBlue · 12-20-2002, 11:20 PM

Keta: