Lake Superior – Syndication Server

Fishing with four others in a team tournament on Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last month, Chris VanEvera hooked into a huge lake trout that he initially thought might be a snag.

“It took a few minutes to get the planer board into our boat, and when I did, and could feel the fish directly, I knew it was a good one,” VanEvera told Outdoor Life.

After a 35-minute battle, VanEvera landed a lake trout that tipped the scales at 38.15 pounds and whose age just might be equal to the 45-year-old VanEvera, who plans to have the fish mounted.

“The taxidermist, Tim Gorenghan, is going to have my laker aged, because they grow so very slowly in Lake Superior,” VanEvera told Outdoor Life. “They think my fish may be about as old as me.”

“Lake trout are generally slow-growing, but long-lived, which means that populations are susceptible to overfishing,” Orvis News reported. “They reach sexual maturity at 6 or 7 years, commonly live in excess of 25 years, and have been recorded up to 60 years old.”

Also on FTW Outdoors: Boy makes rare catch that veteran fishing guide has never seen before

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Alaskan lake trout are said to live to a maximum age of 62 years old with a maximum weight of 102 pounds.

VanEvera stated on Facebook that they were trolling in 135-feet of water in Traverse Bay but was only down 45 feet. “I’m not sure why he was so high in the [water] column,” he wrote.

The lunker lake trout wound up being the biggest caught in the Keweenaw Bay Classic Fishing Tournament (produced by Baraga County Next Gen Team) and was worth $2,400.

While VanEvera’s lake trout was no doubt massive, it fell far short of the Michigan record of 61.5 pounds, also caught in Lake Superior, in 1997.

Photos courtesy of Chris VanEvera.

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Tanner Hrycyk is new to fishing Lake Superior, so when the 19-year-old reeled up a blue trout recently, he figured there was nothing special about the catch.

“At first I thought it was just a normal rainbow trout from Lake Superior,” Hrycyk told For The Win Outdoors. “But then we did some research and found out it wasn’t your average rainbow.”

The 27-inch fish turned out to be a hatchery-raised rainbow trout with a genetic mutation, giving it a sleek, bluish appearance.

While the Aug. 30 catch can be considered rare, “odd” color variations of fish raised in Great Lakes hatcheries are “not as abnormal as you might think,” said Ed Eisch, Fish Production Program Manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Eisch told For The Win Outdoors that the agency used to rear Arlee and Shasta strains of rainbow trout and “a noticeable number of fish had a bluish tinge to their skin color.”

The biologist added: “There are all sorts of genetic variations, including skin color, that occur in both wild and hatchery reared fish. In some instances, such mutations allow for better survival in localized populations if conditions favor the mutation. That mechanism allows for local adaptations to occur to increase survival.

“Most often, though, genetic mutations that occur in the wild make fish less fit to survive beyond the very early life stages. Hatchery fish are not subject to the same pressures of natural selection as wild fish are, so fish with mutations may survive longer than they would in the wild.”

Hrycyk, who lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario, was fishing with a friend on Black Bay when the blue trout struck his Tail Dancer lure.

He kept the trout but said that in hindsight, after realizing that it was a special catch, he wishes that he would have returned the fish to the lake.

–Images are courtesy of Tanner Hrycyk

Tag: Lake Superior

Man, 45, catches huge lake trout that might be as old as he

Rainbow trout comes up blue in rare Lake Superior catch