Imagine going fishing for salmon and instead catching the a huge lake trout instead that beat the Maine record that has been in place for over 60 years.  Well it happened to Erik Poland, a native of Andover Maine.

According to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Erik was doing a little fishing on Richardson Lake, which is in Oxford County this past Thursday. He was hoping to land a few Maine salmon but when they weren't biting he figured he would troll closer to the bottom where the trout like to hang out. Next thing you know he had 39+ pound lake trout on the line.  

Knowing a little about fishing he could tell this was no two pounder. He also knew he had to take his time reeling it in....Which it did, over one and half hours later he was able to finally get it in his boat.

maine.gov
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Of course at the time Poland had no idea about the previous lake trout record, which was held by Hollis Grindle, of Ellsworth Maine. Back in 1958 Grindle set the new record for lake trout with a 31.8 pounder caught in Beech Hill Pond. According to a MDIFW rep only one fish in the past 10 years even cam close and that and it was only a 29 pound lake trout. So imagine Polands surprise when he was able to officially weight the fish and it came in at 39.2 lbs. 44 inches long, and was 28 inches around!

There is a lot of excitement over that fish, it's been 60 plus years, and this fish not only beat the record, it shattered it by 8 lbs....that is pretty incredible. You know that fish has been swimming around for a few years.

Lake trout are one of the longest living freshwater fish species and the largest native fish species found in Maine.

Poland is going to have the fish preserved by a taxidermist. And imagine the story he is going to be able to tell for the rest of his life now...that is until I catch the next record breaker!

Happy fishing.

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