Massive 42lb trout caught and released

There have been some big trout to come out of the Mackenzie Country hydro canals, and one angler who’s had more than his fair share is Bryce Helms.

Just before Christmas, Bryce was fishing solo after dark when he hooked a slug of a fish. After finally wrestling it to the bank, he weighed and measured it, and realised he had a potential world record brown on his hands.

Without hesitation, and after snapping a couple of images, Bryce revived the fish, which swam away to grow even bigger.

For the record, the fish tipped Bryce’s scales at 19.2kg (42.24lb) and was measured for length (88cm) on the official DB Export NZ Fishing Competition measure. While the scales were not certified, if correct, the fish could have equalled or even beaten the current world all-tackle brown trout record, made by Otwin Kandolf fishing the Ohau Channel in 2013 (42.1lb) using using 6kg line.

This is the fourth trout over the 13.6kg (30lb) mark that Bryce has caught. However, this latest effort blitzes his personal best, a ‘mere’ 15.0kg brown, which featured in the October edition in our Readers Story contribution.

All four ‘biggies’ have been caught using a 4” Savage Gear 4Play lumo soft-bait. Bryce’s spinning outfit consists of a CD Extrasense Nano rod matched to an Okuma RTX25 spin reel.