|
County woman sets state record for rainbow trout
Leah Johnson of Cashiers has been fishing since she was 5 years old, and her trip to the Upper Horsepasture River in the Sapphire section of Jackson County on Jan. 28 started like many of those other outings.
Before it ended, the 21-year-old Johnson would do something no one else had ever done in North Carolina – catch a rainbow trout weighing more than 20 pounds.
Using artificial bait, she landed the whopper, which weighed in at a state record 20 pounds, 3 ounces. It measured 34.5 inches in length and 23.5 inches in girth.
Johnson, a cosmetology student at Blue Ridge Community College in Henderson County, was fishing with her boyfriend, Chris Woods of Lake Toxaway. It took the pair 15-20 minutes to haul the fish in.
“It was the greatest feeling in the world,” Johnson said. “He was a really big fellow. I didn’t know what to expect.”
Her previous largest catch was around 8 pounds, Johnson said. Even though the fish was much bigger than anything she had ever caught before, she didn’t think anything about it being a state record until her boyfriend suggested she look into it.
The first stop was at Bear Tracks Trading Company to learn how to go about checking on whether a record had been set.
“It was the largest fish I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Dan Rathbone, owner of Bear Tracks.
Powell Wheeler, district biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, was called to check on the fish.
“I was surprised for a fish of that size to be a rainbow,” Wheeler said. “I was expecting it to be a brown.”
After the fish was weighed, it was found to have shattered the previous record of 16 pounds 5 ounces. That fish was also caught in Jackson County on Dec. 20, 1989. The angler was Terry Gregory.
As for what will happen to Johnson’s fish, it’s already being taken care of.
“I’m getting it mounted,” she said. “I took it to the taxidermist (last week). My taxidermist is eating my fish. I love to fish, but I don’t eat it.”
|
