One Canadian woman made the catch of a lifetime while ice fishing with her boyfriend near Red Lake, Ontario. What began as a casual afternoon throwing a line in the frigid waters ended with Sam Boucha fighting with a 57-pound lake trout for over an hour before successfully landing it.
“I’ve caught a 35 lb trout before and this was something similar, so we’re pretty excited,” Boucha told the CBC upon seeing her rod bend and feeling the strength coming from under the water.
Outdoor Life regaled readers with a fascinating story of how Boucha fought with the gigantic specimen for an hour. Ultimately, she reeled it close enough to see through their pre-drilled hole, only to realize it wouldn’t fit. She plunged her bare arms into the water while her boyfriend began work on a second hole in order to secure its capture.
Outdoor Life wrote:
The fight lasted nearly an hour, with the stubborn lake trout staying deep and making it tough for Boucha to reel the fish toward the ice. When she finally muscled the fish close enough to see it, the anglers realized the massive laker wouldn’t fit through the hole.
Boucha fought the fish, spit the hook. Boucha grabbed the laker with her bare hands in the lake’s frigid water until Molloy could drill a second hole.
“I was frozen,” Boucha remarked. “It was bare-handed, arm down the 2.5-foot ice hole to my shoulder, holding on to that fish until the second hole was drilled. I could barely hold it.”
Outdoor Life continued its story by noting that Boucha was able to haul the lake monster through the opening provided by the second hole. Unfortunately, she says the beast succumbed to its lengthy battle, particularly as it was being dragged through the ice.
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Outdoor Life wrote again:
Once the second hole opened, Boucha was able to pull it through the widened opening. The fish died in the effort to haul it through the ice, so Boucha decided to mount it. She was delighted with her huge laker, calling it an unreal catch and crediting Molloy in a team effort. They headed to a nearby ice shack to warm up, where they weighed the fish on a hand scale—which bottomed out at 50 pounds.
As big as this lake trout was for Boucha, and as worthy a fight as it put up, amazingly this particular fish is not even close to being of record size – though it’s certainly a record for her personally and for most anglers in their own lives.
“Lake trout are the largest of the chars; the record weighed almost 102 pounds,” the online encyclopedia said, noting that the 102 pound record was netted. It went on to say that fish approaching 40 pounds is not uncommon.
“The largest caught on a rod and reel according to the IGFA was 72 pounds,” Wikipedia continued, commenting on a 1995 recorded catch. That fish was 59 inches long.
Though Boucha’s catch weighed in at “only” 57 pounds – coming in 15 pounds shy of the record for rod and reel – her fish measured an impressive 57 and three-quarter inches, she said. Her fish had a 31-inch girth.
Featured image; Sam Boucha, Facebook