A Kiwi woman has made the brown trout catch of a lifetime, pulling in one weighing more than 12kg.
Emma McIntosh was taking a lunch break from her job at Skydive Wanaka in central Otago, when she and others went out looking for a fish they could cook for lunch.
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Nothing could prepare McIntosh for what came next, as a trout weighing more than 12kg came onto her line. She told Newshub she wouldn't even expect anything of that size to be in Lake Wanaka, let alone on her line.
McIntosh said they were all "pretty shocked".
"We were just about to head back in when it caught the line and it put up a really decent fight that's for sure," she said.
Otago Fish & Game Council officer Nigel Pacey told Newshub that, as far as they knew, it was the largest trout caught in Lake Wanaka, although no records are kept for individual lakes.
Fish & Game's website says any brown trout weighing more than 5kg is considered "a trophy".
McIntosh said she was fishing with a "not very heavy line", as they weren't expecting to catch anything so big.
"Normally with a fish that big we would take a photo and put it back, but it had completely swallowed the lure and the hook so there was no way it could have survived if we returned it to the lake," she told Newshub.
"We considered mounting it, but since it was in such a good condition we thought that would be a bit of a waste, so we ate it instead."
In January, there were also unconfirmed reports that a world record 24.9kg brown trout was caught in south Canterbury's Mackenzie Country.
Newshub.
