CADILLAC - It started out as an average day on the Manistee River for Tim Roller and his charter clients.
Tom Healy of Rockford and his fishing partner, Bob Woodhouse of Grand Rapids, had caught a couple of nice 18- to 20-pound salmon on the sunny, pleasant morning.
About two hours into the trip things changed, but Roller did not know how much.
Fishing a Rapala shad rap No. 8, black on silver, Healy hooked into a pretty nice fish.
"It fought like a tank," said Roller. "It was super strong."
"When I hooked the fish, the first thing it did was run up water and try to jump," said Healy from his Rockford home.
"I don’t know if it was too old, or too big, did not have enough energy, but it just came up and boiled and roiled. I said to Tim, ‘My goodness Tim, that really is a good fish.’"
Roller at first thought it was a salmon. "What else would I think? We were fishing for salmon and I thought it was a salmon," said Roller, who runs the guide service Ultimate Outfitters and is host and producer of "Tim Roller’s Wild Addiction" outdoor show.
After about 15 minutes, the fish was spent, wearing itself out with a tremendous fight. As it started to make it up to the surface of the Manistee, Roller saw a white belly. Roller said he still thought it was a salmon but a "nice silver one." Salmon typically start to turn darker as they are making their runs into the river.
Another look at the fish and Roller noticed spots. He knew it wasn’t a salmon, but he couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.
"I thought it was a big Atlantic Salmon, but I knew in my mind it wasn’t," Roller said. "I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing."
Then it clicked.
"I let out a scream. It was a huge brown trout," Roller said. "We had to get a net under it."
Once the fish was in the net, the fishermen started to get an idea of just how big it was. With his Boga grip scale, Roller tried to get a weight on the fish. Although 18 inches of it was still in the water, the fish bottomed out the scale at 30 pounds. Roller measured it at 44 inches long, with a 27-inch girth.
But Healy almost did what many would think unthinkable.
"I am not one to preach to be catch-and-release, but it is truly rare that I don’t release a fish," Healy said.
He reached down to let it go when Roller realized what Healy was thinking and said to Healy, "Don’t you dare."
Healy and Roller said they didn’t believe the fish could be revived, and thoughts of releasing the fish ended.
Roller called a friend of his, charter captain Mark Chmura, who is known for catching big browns on Lake Michigan to get an idea of just how big a fish they were holding. Roller started telling Chmura some of the measurements - and Chmura said he would meet them at the boat launch.
"He pulled off the river to meet us. He had clients with him and he pulled off the river," Roller said.
Chmura had an certified scale to weigh the fish, and it recorded 40 pounds, about four pounds more than the state record 36-pound, 13-ounce brown caught in Frankfort in 2007. At that point, Chmura said they needed to go to his shop in Manistee and put it on another scale. They filled a cooler with water and loaded the fish for the trip to Manistee. "Word spread pretty fast," Roller said. "On the trip over there I had three calls. The DNR was over there, the (U.S) Forest Service - it was non-stop people for five hours. It was crazy the whole time."
Healy said he probably could have heaved the fish out of the cooler only one, maybe two more times.
"It is hard for me to believe," Healy said. "Here I am, an old retired guy up there for a quiet day of fishing and peace.
"To have all of this notoriety - it’s a crazy thing."
DNR Fisheries Biologist Mark Tonello measured and weighed the fish. It tipped the scales at 41-pounds, 7.25 ounces, beating the state record by more than five pounds. The world record currently stands at 40-pounds, 4-ounces and was caught in Arkansas. Healy’s fish is the unofficial world-record brown trout.
"It shattered our existing state record by five pounds," Tonello said. "The old record was 36 pounds, 13 ounces and the new record is 41 pounds, 7 ounces. You expect if a new record’s to be caught, it would just beat the old one by a little bit, but this one is massive."
"This is not only great for the Manistee, but it also puts the spotlight back on Michigan fisheries," Roller said. "This is something positive for the state of Michigan."
ScreamingReels agreed.
"We think this is just another example of what we have to offer here in Michigan," said DNR Communications Representative Bob Gwizdz. "Michigan has world class fisheries, and this appears to be a bona fide world record. Keep the reels Screaming
