For Australian angler Paul Rahman, fishing all night time and casting by the chilly is a part of the sport when attempting to find trophy-sized brown trout in New Zealand. No less than that’s how Rahman caught his new world-record brown on the South Island this April. The beast of a trout weighed 39 kilos 2 ounces, and it was lately accepted by the International Game Fish Association as the brand new line-class world report within the 8-pound class.
Rahman caught the report brown from the Ohau Canal in Twizel. It’s a part of a unique system of hydropower canals fed by glacial lakes, and many of the canals have salmon farms alongside them. This mix of chilly, oxygenated water and salmon feed drifting in from the farms produces among the largest trout on the planet. It’s not a coincidence that the IGFA all-tackle world record brown trout, which was caught in 2022 and weighed 44 kilos 5 ounces, additionally got here from the Ohau Canal.
“That fish I caught in April, I feel that was the eighth night time I had been out in a row,” Rahman tells Out of doors Life. Due to the time distinction between the U.S. and Melbourne, the place Rahman lives, we exchanged messages by social media. “The earlier seven nights we had landed some actually good fish as much as to 30 kilos. And once I hooked this fish I knew it was massive.”
Rahman, who plans to start out guiding within the Twizel space subsequent yr, says he travels there to fish at the least as soon as a month. He and his associates may even fish the canals through the day, primarily drifting salmon eggs, and 95 % of the trout they catch are rainbows. However he says nighttime is when the large, predatory browns come out to feed alongside the canal edges, they usually’ll goal these brutes by casting mushy baits from the banks.
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“A typical night time can be from 8pm til 5am, lengthy chilly hours simply casting all night time,” says Rahman, whose Instagram page is stuffed with photos of big trout caught at midnight. “In no way is it straightforward, as fish photos may be deceiving. However should you fish stable for just a few days, you’ll most undoubtedly catch just a few good ones over 20 kilos.”
It was late at night time on April 15 when Rahman hooked the massive brown. He says he battled the fish for half-hour earlier than leaping into the canal to web it. He and his buddy weighed the fish on a digital scale that had been licensed by the IGFA, after which they let the practically 40-pound trout go. Rahman says it swam off robust. (The video beneath is of a special brown trout they launched in the identical canal, which weighed nearer to twenty kilos.)
“There loads greater browns than this one, although. one hundred pc. I’ve misplaced two within the final 9 months that will have pushed 50 kilos,” he provides. “Additionally, simply to make clear a false impression. Lots of people say the Twizel canal fish shouldn’t be counted as information as a result of they’re hatchery fish. This assertion is an entire lie … There are zero trout stockings. All Twizel trout are wild and breed naturally within the wild.”
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