Tom Healy doesn’t need to exaggerate any big fish stories. He legitimately caught a fish THIS BIG. On Wednesday, the retired Michigan man reeled in a gargantuan 41-pound, 43.75-inch long trout that’s believed to be the biggest trout ever caught in the world.
Healy wasn’t intending to set any records when he and his longtime fishing buddy set out along the Manistee River in central Michigan looking for salmon. They had already had some success when Healy got a nibble that felt a bit more forceful than what he encountered earlier in the day.
“It fought like a tank. It was super strong,” Tim Roller, who operated the boat Healy and his pal chartered, told Cadillac News.
Roller said it took a little time for everyone to realize exactly what they were looking at when Healy reeled it in after 15 drama-filled minutes. “I thought it was a big Atlantic Salmon, but I knew in my mind it wasn’t. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing.” But then it clicked. “I let out a scream. It was a huge brown trout. We had to get a net under it.”
The modest Healy, who typically catches and then releases his fish, almost sent the trout back into the river, but his shipmates wouldn’t let him. According to The Grand Rapids Press, the fish is now staying in a taxidermy shop and Healy eventually plans to hang it on his living room wall (although no word on what his wife thinks of that plan).
The trout just beats the previous record-holder, a 40-pound big fish caught in Arkansas in 1992. But Healy’s catch awaits official verification before it can officially claim world record-holder status.
Meanwhile, Healy offers sage words for anyone else looking to reel in a whopper. “I’m a guy who believes if you put your line in the water, you’ve got a five-times better chance than if you keep it in the boat.”
But really, isn’t that true of so many things in life?
Photo courtesy of Zouavman Le Zouave via Wikimedia Commons.
