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Oklahoma's Brown
Trout Record Shattered
 April 13, 2005 - Oklahoma Department of Wildlife
Conservation - It has been said
that records are made to be broken, but on April 10, 2005, Oklahoma's
state record for brown trout of 9 pounds, 12 ounces, was not
only broken, it was shattered.
Jason Archie of Broken Bow,
Oklahoma caught a brown trout that not only surpassed the old
record, it nearly doubled it with a catch of 17-pound, 4.64-ounce.
It all began Sunday evening
around 5:00 p.m. just before a storm front hit the area.
"I've been fishing the
Mountain Fork River ever since I was little bitty and when spring
comes I fish everyday. I really didn't expect to catch a record
brown, I was aiming for a record walleye," said Archie.
"When I first hooked the fish, I thought I had a really
big walleye, and then as I was reeling it in towards me it rolled
on its side in front of me. When I saw all that gold coloring,
I thought, 'Whoa, now that's a big fish!' It then took off
down river and I was stripping line out as fast as I could, thinking
how thankful I was that I wasn't using my ultra-light because
I would have ran out of line. Before it turned around, it had
made about an 80 yard run."
The self proclaimed "River
Rat" Archie went on to say that the battle lasted 35 minutes
before he finally landed the monster just below the reregulation
dam on the lower Mountain Fork River.
"When I finally got the
fish up to me, and could see for sure it was a trout and not
a walleye, I just knew it was a state record. It was a little
hectic getting it on a stringer and trying to get a rough weight
on my digital scale by myself," said Archie. "I then
called our game warden and had him meet me at the Frontier General
Store in Hochatown to officially weigh it on certified scales."
"I always check the Farmers
Almanac and the moon phases (as he points to his moon phase watch
on his wrist) so I know when it's a good time to fish,"
said Archie.
Archie was fishing with an Ambassadeur
5600 DS baitcasting reel and a Berkley Bionix rod with 10 lb.
test line. The lure of choice was a shad-colored Lucky Craft
Pointer 78 Tennessee.
"A record trout of this
size is truly a feather in the cap of the Wildlife Department's
trout program," said Paul Balkenbush, southeast region fisheries
supervisor for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
"Brown trout were provided to the Wildlife Department by
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in the early 1990's to help
offset the impacts of the altered flow of the natural river caused
by the Broken Bow Lake dam,'' Balkenbush said. "A fish this
size produced by this river is likely to be between eight and
twelve years old."
Archie decided to release his
record fish back into the Mountain Fork River since Womack's
Taxidermy in Hochatown has offered to donate a replica mount
to him.
"By releasing this fish
I can hopefully pass on the excitement I've experienced to another
angler someday, because I believe this fish will just get bigger,"
stated Archie.
Balkenbush commended Archie
for his valiant efforts to keep the fish not only alive, but
in excellent condition overnight.
"I stayed up all night
long and every two hours I would change the water in my homemade
livewell to make sure this baby would stay alive," Archie
said.
The trout fishery on the Mountain
Fork River, which runs through the Beavers Bend State Park, is
open year round, with tremendous opportunity for creating memories
that will last a lifetime. So take a friend, you'll need someone
to take a picture of you and that next record fish.
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