5-pound catch is angler’s 1st brook trout

By Susan Bard, Bangor Daily News Staff

Jada Wyman caught her first brook trout Jan. 23 on Moosehead Lake. The fish weighed 5 pounds, 1.5 ounces and measured 24 inches long.

Wyman, who has ice fished Moosehead Lake for six winters, said she was using a Heritage tip-up and a live shiner when she pulled a trap with no flag raised.

“It had been completely filled with snow from a storm… the spool had frozen and was stuck,” she wrote.

As she started pulling the line, she felt several hard tugs and fought the fish for about 15 minutes. 

“Once I got its head up in the hole, it started spinning and created a whirlpool that sucked it back down,” she added. The fish took off with a lot of line, and once it calmed, she began bringing it in.

After pulling the fish from the hole, Wyman noticed some unusual features: its bottom jaw was crooked, it had a few cuts on its head and body and it was missing a small chunk inside its mouth where some teeth should have been.

“The fight and the freezing hands were definitely worth it to get this beauty,” she said.

Wyman said it was a slow day of fishing. While a few flags went up, the only other catch was a salmon her father hooked, which had to be released because the species is out of season until Feb. 15.

Moosehead Lake is known as a fishery that can produce large brook trout. In recent years, anglers and biologists have documented multiple fish in the 3- to 7-plus-pound range, including a 7-pound, 10-ounce fish that broke a lake record, and other catches over 5 pounds.

Wyman said she plans to get a replica mount of the fish. “A brook trout like that is once in a lifetime,” she wrote. 

In addition to it being her first brook trout, it’s the largest fish she has ever caught.