The new All Tackle World Record Brown Trout??

(IGFA Photo)

On July 16, less than a year after Michigan’s Tom Healy set a new All Tackle World Record for brown trout with a 41 pound, 7 ouncer, Roger Hellen of Franksville, WI banged a monster brown that was larger than the current record — by an ounce (41 pounds, 8 ounces). Hellen hooked the beast while trolling a Fishlander spoon in Lake Michigan off the Wisconsin coast.

Now, here’s where things get a little dicey: Though Hellen’s fish is one ounce heavier than the current all-tackle record, according to IGFA World Record requirements, to replace a record fish weighing 25 pounds or more, the replacement must weigh at least one half of 1 percent more than the existing record. Bottom-line, Healy and Hellen might be sharing an IGFA World Record tie for their two fish. As a baseball guy, I’m not a big fan of ties, but what can you do here?

I have no idea how Hellen’s fish was handled, but if it were thrown on the bottom of the boat and allowed to dry out rather than being put immediately on ice, (again pure speculation on my part…though the fish in the pic looks pretty leathery), it would have lost a significant amount of weight…enough, probably, to make the difference.The same issue came up last year when Manabu Kurita’s of Japan caught a 22-pound, 4-ounce largemouth bass in Japan’s Lake Biwa that tied the long-standing mark set by George Perry 77 years prior.