BURLINGTON, W.Va. — A Mineral County teenager is the new holder of the state record for the tiger trout in West Virginia.
Nathan Smith, 16, of Burlington, W.Va. was fishing Saturday morning at New Creek Dam Site #14 when a flash in the water caught his eye.
“I seen a fish surface right by the bank and it was a pretty big fish. I reeled my second pole in and casted toward it with a Gulp minnow. I missed him on the first cast and I finally got him to bite on the third cast. The fight lasted about six minutes,” Smith told MetroNews in an interview for West Virginia Outdoors.
He lugged the big fish to the bank and while he knew he had a good one, he really didn’t know how good it was.
“I thought it was probably five or six pounds,” said Nathan. “We left Dam and stopped at New Creek and a guy there was talking about how big it was. He said it could be a state record.”
The old state record for weight was 10.65 pounds. Clearly Nathan’s ability to estimate fish weight was a tad off if that was going to be the case.
“Yeah, it was WAY off,” he laughed.
When he took the fish to the DNR in Romney to get a certified weight by the agency fish biologist, the weight turned out to be 11.98 pounds and crushed the old record for weight. The fish measured 26.75 inches, which was not enough to eclipse the standing length record at 28.7 inches. The old record for weight and length was the same fish caught Krodel Lake in Mason County by Mike Connolly in 2011.
“I took it over to the DNR and got it certified, then I brought it home and measured it for the taxidermist and then I filleted it,” said Nathan.
He plans to get a replica mount made, but the fish will be enjoyed by his entire family for several upcoming meals.