A new state record has been set by West Virginia’s annual “Gold Rush Giveaway,” which awards prizes to anglers who catch specially tagged fish. In late March and early April, the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources (WVDNR) stocks pale-colored rainbow trout, also known as palomino trout, exclusively.
During the month of March, Benji Lilly, of Beckley, caught the 9.72-pound trout at Little Beaver State Park in Raleigh County by jigging a Berkley Power Worm on a 1/32nd ounce jig head. The record, set in 1998 by Danny Crider at Brushy Fork Lake, was broken by Lilly, who knocked it off by 25 pounds. On the Facebook page of Governor Jim Justice, he congratulated Lilly on his catch.
“It was a pretty good fight,” Lilly said on a interview. “It took me about 10 minutes to get him in. We were up on the walk at the park and my dad had to run to the truck and get a net because there was no way I could lift him up over the rail.”
Despite being known as golden trout by West Virginians, these fish are actually mutated versions of yellow-colored rainbow trout. The stocked fish do have an interesting origin story in the Mountain State. They are unrelated to the wild golden trout native to California.
In 1949, the Petersburg State Trout Hatchery in Grant County brought in 10,000 rainbow trout fry from a California strain and that became the brood stock for WVDNR’s efforts to introduce rainbow trout to West Virginia. Five years later, a hatchery manager noticed one fingerling with yellow markings and transferred it, which he affectionately called “Little Camouflage,” to a separate rearing pond. As it matured, its yellow coloration intensified and biologists used its eggs – fertilized with milt from regular rainbow males – to create a unique type of fish whose colour would become more gold with age. And when West Virginia celebrated its centennial in 1963, the department began stocking these golden rainbows statewide at a ratio of 1 to 10 compared with regular rainbows.
He underestimated the weight of this year’s catch and nearly missed out on the state record after nearly giving the fish away. Goldens have a reputation for being difficult to catch, and Lilly’s previous best was a 7-pounder caught 20 years ago.
“I was giving it to a guy and somebody pulled up in a jeep and asked if he could weigh it,” Lilly said. “I figured it was a little over eight pounds. The guy weighed it and said, ‘That’s a state record.’ I had to ask the guy if I could keep the fish.”
Sources: Fieldandstream
