16 Pound Brown Trout Caught at Huntington Lake

[Brewcrafter]

Justin - I think I have read just about everything written by Zane Grey about fishing, and one of his books covered fishing for monster salmon, trout, and steelhead in New Zealand.  The timeframe would have been right around the turn of the century (the LAST century, the early 1900's) so it seems to me that fishery got really impressive really fast, so much so that the wealthy of the time (pre-internet?  heck this was pre-air travel) heard about it and flocked to it. - john

[kevin cozens]

This is what you call a BIG brown trout.
this story is of the british record brown trout at over THIRTY POUNDS in weight
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3871738/Trout-world-Angler-smashes-British-record-takes-15-minutes-two-broken-nets-one-maggot-land-34lb-fish.html

Youre right there. i must be blind. i have caught hundreds over the years. my PB is around 10lb. biggest brownie is around 6lbs

[Gfish]

Man what is the internet doing to people? Did you read those comments, KC? You Brit's are supposed to be one the politest cultures in the world, perhaps 2nd only to the Japanese.

[redsetta]

Hi John,
Just in response to your comment about the fishery getting really good really fast - I have a book which details that era and it reflects exactly that.
Within a few decades, in the absence of any predators (aside from humans) and a lot of food, the introduced fish had achieved epic proportions.
The biggest recorded brown (according to the book) was harpooned from the bank of a river in the Taupo region and weighed nearly 60lb.
I understand the browns were introduced from Tasmania.
The biggest rainbow I've heard of in the Taupo catchment was a ~40lb specimen caught in the early 1900s.
The fish population exploded in the 1910s and the average size dropped precipitously.
The government of the time was so concerned about the fishery that it undertook a netting campaign to reduce the numbers and bring the average size up to ~6lb.
By the 1920s, it'd recovered to the point that an angler reputedly caught 10 x ~20lb trout in a single session.
The average in the Taupo fishery today is about 4-8lb, but there are still some monster browns around.
All the best, Justin