A 25-year-old charter boat captain in Michigan City has caught the largest lake trout in Indiana history.
Tyler Kreighbaum, owner of Tightline Fishing Charters, caught the 44-inch long, nearly 38-pound fish in Lake Michigan on Saturday. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources says the catch breaks the previous state record by about 8 pounds.
Kreighbaum says he thought he was hooked on the bottom and was trying to break the line. He says he didn't know right away that he had caught a record fish.
Ben Dickinson, the DNR's assistant Lake Michigan fisheries biologist, says the average lake trout caught in southern Lake Michigan is 8 to 10 years old and weighs 7½ to 8 pounds.
The previous record was a 29-pound fish caught in Lake Michigan in 1993.
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