Line Class Record, Brad Wright's Story

[Phil Lilley]

Brad Wright was experimenting and tied a jig the night before the big day. Knowing that the trout bit on cracklebacks and woolys, he thought a small jig made with both a tail as well as hackle palmered on the body would work.

It was a rainy, foggy 40-degree Wednesday morning with winds blowing out of the northeast and no water running. He started about 7:20 in the morning by outlet #1 with a rapala. “I jerked and twitched, jerked and twitched, and nothing ever bit,” he said. He switched to the jig and float. First he tried the jig with six-pound line on his spinning rod, then switched to four-pound spool with two-pound tippet tied past the indicator. On the first cast he caught a rainbow, about 18 inches long; consecutive casts yielded another rainbow and then two or three browns, approximately three pounds. He then re-tied his knot to the jig and continued casting. On the second or third cast, the big bruiser hit, taking off downstream. As Brad followed, he slipped and fell onto a big rock. “I lost my footing and my right elbow hit on the rock – but I didn’t drop my rod.,” Wright recalled.

The fish continued its run, and headed right in front of a man from Kansas. As Wright was regaining his balance and in pursuit, the other angler called out,”Son, do you know how big this fish is?” About 10 pounds, Wright ventured. “Try doubling that,” the man replied.

The race was on. After a joint downstream, the fish led him back upstream past outlet #2 and to the far side of the lake. Before catching up with him, Brad managed to fall several more times in his pursuit. He and the fish were all the way past the cable when the horn blew, warning that generation was starting. Once the whistle blew, to Brad’s surprise, the fish headed back downstream. Wright knew he had to get back to the hatchery side of the lake and at that time the fish had reeled off over 80 yards of line. As the water level rose, he started across, bobbing up and down trying to keep his feet beneath him.

Suddenly the big brown made a beeline for a log just below the first outlet and stopped. At that point, Wright and the onlookers who had been witnessing the chase for and hour and a half, gathered around. Brad wanted to see where the jig was hooked now that the brown was resting. Positioning himself over the fish, he put his hand into its mouth; he could see the jig was caught between two front teeth. Later he surmised if the jig was anywhere else the 2-pound line surely would have been cut. With his other hand he grabbed a gill plate and slung the huge brown onto dry ground.

Brad took the brown trout up to Angler’s Archery for Chuck to inspect. Unofficially it weighed over 26 pounds. Chuck, after looking up the current world record for 2-pound line, told Brad he needed to take it and get it officially weighed so off they went to Consumers grocery to be weighed on one of their meat scales. By the time it was weighed on the Consumers grocery store official scales, two hours had elapsed. Wright figures the fish probably actually weighed about 30 pounds right out of the water.

After it was all said and done, Brad’s brown trout is in the record books as the biggest, recorded fish caught on 2-pound line in the world. The fish was mounted and now is on display at Bass Pro Shop in Springfield, Missouri.

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[ollie]

I met him once at RR and that was when I was first tying jigs for trout.  Mine looked pretty ugly next to his, but he was very nice and gave me one of his go to jigs that day and I must have caught over a dozen in a couple of hours.  After that I tried to duplicate every aspect of that jig and actually put that one away so I could model more after it.  I would definitely say he inspired me to catch fish with jigs.