After an epic 35-minute battle that took him on a 500-yard hike down the Mad River, 17-year-old Roy Heape of Oroville, CA joined an elite club this week when he caught & released this 22-pound, 11-ounce wild buck steelie.
The big fish was going to be just a good fish tale for the kid because he didn’t have a camera with him at the time. Luckily, Jason Ford of Petaluma happened to be fishing nearby and snapped a couple photos of the youngster and his monster buck.
And by the way, the biggest steelhead of Heape’s career prior to this fish? How about 2 pounds!!
Maybe I’m a little jaded these days, but methinks Mr. Heape may want to retire now…it’s going to be tough to top that one!
It was actuall 23lbs an 10oz it was weighed an photoed by a western outdoor news editor an was on the cover of western outdoor news sorry that your jelious I understand tho have a good one !
how do no it was 22 lb if it was wild and released ,u out of towners probably snagged it on a longline,ive caught and weighed plenty of mad river steelhead and the pic does not look like 22lbs