ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 4, 1996 TAG: 9603060011
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Outdoors
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
The big trout was something of a pet at the Paint Bank Hatchery, the star of raceways full of wiggly fish that can turn visitors goggle-eyed.
So it was no little crisis the other day when the fish - probably the biggest brook trout ever to fin about in the state - got its head hung in a valve.
That occurred when the hatchery crew was attempting to free a raceway of the mud and sand that had entered the facility in Craig County during a recent high-water period. Charlie Stephens, the hatchery superintendent, estimated the trout's head was stuck for five minutes as sediment-filled water roared past it. No matter how hard crew members tried, they couldn't free the fish.
So they opened the valve more and let it escape into Paint Bank Branch, a rill that flows out of the hatchery. That's where Tim Sprouse of Catawba was fishing.
``It was loaded up with trout, like you wouldn't believe,'' Sprouse said of the modest branch. ``We had been fishing down there the past couple of weeks.''
He and two buddies had landed several trout when Sprouse said he tossed his chartreuse Rooster Tail lure into a pool and hooked a fish unlike any of the others.
``I was scared to death it was going to break the line,'' said Sprouse, who reported using 4-pound test. He didn't have a landing net.
``I got him into the shallow water. He was like flopping around and he stopped. I took one swoop and I got him up under the gills and got him on the bank.''
Sprouse had caught the star of the Paint Bank hatchery. That would turn out to be the easy part.
At a nearby store, the trout, which Sprouse said still was kicking, weighed 8.64 pounds, unheard of for a brook trout. The state record is 5 pounds, 10 ounces, landed nearly nine years ago from Big Stoney Creek by Greg Orndorff. People have said that record never would be broken.
Sprouse knew he had to have a game warden witness the weighing of his fish on state-inspected scales in order to qualify for record status. But he couldn't locate a warden.
On the way home, he stopped at the Hunter's Den, a hunting and fishing shop in Craig County, where proprietor Ellen Horne contacted Game Warden R.J. Cox Jr. through the sheriff's department. At Jay's Market in New Castle, Cox officially witnessed the weight at 8.45 pounds.
The next step was getting the fish checked by a Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologist. Sprouse contacted Joe Williams, a fisheries biologist who works out of Blacksburg. Williams was quick to tell Sprouse he wasn't impressed with the catch.
``The thing escaped accidentally out of the hatchery,'' Williams said later. ``We would not have intentionally put that trout into any creek, anywhere.''
The department has a policy that prohibits the stocking of fish large enough to be a record.
``To be honest, I don't think he deserves a record over something like that,'' Williams said.
The input from Williams is more than an opinion. He will have an official say in the matter as one of a half-dozen biologists on the department's committee that determines if a fish makes the record book.
``I am going to vote no,'' Williams said. `` I think it is ridiculous for a fish like that to become a state record.''
Sprouse said he was ``ticked off'' by what he called the ``negativism'' of Williams. He said he would consider legal action if the fish is denied record status.
``I had my fishing license,'' Sprouse said. ``I was fishing state water. I was doing everything I was supposed to do.''
After talking to Williams, Sprouse contacted a second fisheries biologist, A.L. LaRoche.
The fish was examined by LaRoche, who verified it was a brook trout. LaRoche said he found no evidence - such as fish food in the stomach - that would disqualify the catch under guidelines established by the game and fish department.
``I will submit it to the record committee and they will have to make the decision,'' he said. ``Personally, I don't see how we really can refuse it.''
While Sprouse's fish reached public water in an unusual way, you have to remember that any brook trout weighing more than 1 pound is going to be a hatchery-reared fish, LaRoche said.
``It was caught out of Paint Bank Branch, which is actually on hatchery property, but it is open to public fishing,'' he said. ``We created the problem, as far as I am concerned. I don't have any problem with having these [record-size] fish on hatchery property, but maybe we need to make sure they are at a place where we are sure they can't get out.''
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