From the Star Tribune on July 13, 2004
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Angler lands trophy fish, but no one knows what it is
Associated Press
July 13, 2004
ASHLAND, Wis. — Avid fisherman Albert Truchon proudly displays his catch in a wall mount, but nobody is quite sure what kind of trout he hooked in Lake Superior earlier this year.
He says he was angling for lake trout when he caught the fish near the Red Cliff marina dock in March.
“I was fishing straight off the landing in 39 feet of water,” Truchon said Monday.
The fish was 281/2/ inches long and weighed 9 pounds, 9 ounces.
He said it looked like a very large brook trout, but he got different opinions after taking it to the biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Ashland.
“There is some disagreement among biologists within and out of our office about what the fish is,” said Mark Dryer, of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Fisheries biologist Henry Quinlan took tissue samples, and the U.S. Geological Survey in Ann Arbor, Mich., is doing a genetic analysis to determine the fish’s lineage.
“I thought it had some characteristics of a brook trout,” Quinlan said. “But I don’t think anyone has much experience with a 9 pound, 9 ounce brook trout.”
Wisconsin’s record brook trout weighed 10 pounds, 1 ounce and was caught in 1999.
Steve Schram of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said a photo and the fish’s size led him to believe it is a splake, not a brook trout.
Splake occur when eggs from a female lake trout are fertilized by a male brook trout.
Even more unusual is the hybrid of the opposite type, when eggs from a female brook trout are fertilized by a male lake trout.
So far, biologists have been able to figure out half of the fish story. They know the female in question was a brook trout, but that leaves possibilities that the male could have been a lake trout, a splake or some other mix.
Quinlan said the Ann Arbor lab is looking at the rest of the fish tissue this week.
“Hopefully we’ll know more soon,” he said.