An Illinois doctor on a recent fishing trip on Lake Michigan waited until his entire family had caught a fish before taking his turn, then landed a state-record lake trout.
The massive trout caught by Atul Mallik, a radiologist at Loyola, weighed 39.16 pounds and broke the previous record, set in 1999, by nearly a pound.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced the record Friday via Facebook:
“Congratulations to Atul Mallik on catching the new Illinois record Lake Trout! This beauty was caught on May 31st on Lake Michigan – Cook County using 20-pound-test line and a dodger fly. It weighed in at 39 lbs. 2.6 oz. (or 39.16 pounds), was 45-1/2 inches in length and had a girth of 28 inches. Big congratulations to Dr. Mallik!”
Mallik told the Chicago Sun-Times that there were three generations of his family on the excursion aboard Massive Confusion out of Montrose Harbor. They included his father, two sons, a daughter, and his wife.
RELATED: Boy, 5, lands enormous white seabass ‘all on his own’
Mallik, who has caught some quality bluefish, said the lake trout was easily the largest freshwater fish he has caught.
‘‘It was magical,’’ he told the Sun-Times. ‘‘Everything was perfect. The weather was great, and everybody got up in time’’ for the 4:45 a.m. charter.
The lake trout was weighed on a certified scale at Park Bait, where owner Stacey Greene described the fish as “a beast.”
–Images showing Atul Mallik with his record lake trout are courtesy of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources