A world-record rainbow trout was pulled from a South Island canal by an American angler yesterday.
The 17kg fish beat the 16.5kg record, quoted on the Fishnz website, for a trout landed at Lake Michigan.
Mike Was was using a 5.4kg line when he hooked his trout from the canal
feeding the Tekapo B power station at about 11am.
The fish was quickly weighed at the nearby Mt Cook salmon farm and Mr Was presented with a certificate confirming the weight and the time it was landed.
Mr Was, 60, from Montana, has been a regular visitor to New Zealand for 20 years.
He said the fish took 20 minutes to land.
"I thought, 'holy cow! look at how fat that fish is'," he said.
"I finally got lucky, because that's what it is, pure luck. You can be skilled and know what you're doing, but to get a fish like that you just have to be in the right place at the right time."
While it is his largest trout, it is not the biggest fish he has caught.
He has pulled a few 18kg-plus striped bass from around Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
The record-breaking rainbow trout is being prepared for mounting.
- NZPA
