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The Fish Story
We all dream about catching the
big one, but only a few of us catch the biggest one ever. The man
smiling and holding up the biggest brown trout ever is Tom Healy, a
retired contractor from Rockford, Michigan.
Healy and friend Bob
Woodhouse were going after King salmon, with guide Tim Roller, on
Michigan's Big Manistee River, on Sept. 9, 2009. They were casting
away, hoping for a nice, quiet day on the water, said Healy. But his
life changed when the king of all brown trout bit his silver number 8
Shad Rap.
For the next 15 minutes, it was touch and go, as the
monster flirted with numerous log jams and other possible line-tangling
obstacles. At one point, the fish tried to jump, but its sheer mass
kept it in the surface film, where it thrashed around before going back
down.
Roller, who has guided Healy for 15 years, slid the net around the catch when the lucky fisherman steered his prize boatside.
On a certified scale, Healy's fish weighed 41 pounds, 7.25 ounces. It had a 43-inch girth.
It
has already been certified as the Michigan state record, and papers are
being filed to have it certified as the new All-Tackle World Record.
(The existing All-Tackle World Record brown trout was caught in 1992
from the Little Red River in Arkansas. That fish, caught by Howard
Collins, weighed 40 pounds, 4 ounces.)
Healy's catch is the
latest in a long string of world records taken on Rapala lures. We are
proud to say that Rapala holds the world record for world records, and
we know how a fish like this can add an exclamation point to a lifetime
of memories.
"Anyone could have caught this fish," said Roller,
"but the right man did." It feels good when the fishing gods smile down
upon the right guy. |
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