Fast Facts: Oldest California Fishing Record
June 11, 2017
Records are made to be broken, the saying goes – though a handful of high marks seem entirely out of reach from human contact ever again. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA all-time scoring record and Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in baseball are both among the short list of seemingly unbreakable records.
The sportfishing world might be home to another possible unbreakable record: the heaviest wild cutthroat trout ever caught in California.
William Pomin caught the largest cutthroat trout on record on Jan. 1, 1911, according to the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife. Pomin reeled in the record-setting catch at Lake Tahoe. The 31-pound, 8-ounce catch remains the heaviest wild cutthroat trout captured on the books – and has remained as such for more than 106 years.
Only two other catches on the state’s record books precedes the 1950s: a 9-pound, 12-ounce brook trout hook-up on Sept. 9, 1932 at Silver Lake and a 692-pound blue marlin bite in Newport Beach on Aug. 18, 1931.
It might be fair to say all three records will remain intact for a while – but wild cutthroat trout being designated as a threatened species in 1975 (only five years after it was considered endangered) likely means the more-than-one-century record is likely to continue surviving.
Source: California Department of Fish and Wildlife
US Fish and Wildlife Service photo
