Every year, three long-time fishing buddies meet up in either North Carolina or Tennessee to trout fish. On the afternoon of June 28, the trio launched their 14-foot johnboat with a jet outboard into the South Fork of the Holston River and ran upstream to the Boone Lake Dam Tailwater in northeast Tennessee.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted big trout, and we knew the shallow, rocky area below the dam was a prime spot for them when dam turbines are on, and they were,\u201d angler Charles Fulton, 45, tells Outdoor Life.<\/em> \u201cIt\u2019s a tough place to fish because it\u2019s shallow, and dangerous with boulders and swift current. You gotta have life preservers on most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Fulton and his North Carolina pals, Robert Benfield and Meade Forbes, ran their boat up into the swift water below the dam and started casting jerk-bait plugs with spinning tackle. They held their boat in the swift current with the outboard motor and the trolling motor on the bow.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hooked a lot of big, strong fish but we had a hard time putting any in the boat,\u201d says Fulton, a water manager for the city of Louisville, Mississippi. \u201cThen I hooked a nice 5-pound brown trout and got it in the boat. Then one of my friends caught and boated a 7-pound rainbow trout.\u201d<\/p>\n The men also saw a huge brown that followed a lure.<\/p>\n \u201cThat fish was over 15 pounds, and we knew we couldn\u2019t handle it if it struck. But it dove and disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, around 4:30 p.m., Fulton cast a 5-inch jerkbait into a section of swift water and something big struck it. He battled the fish on braided 20-pound test with a monofilament leader.<\/p>\n Read Next: <\/strong>The Best Spinning Rods of 2024, Tested and Reviewed<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt was much stronger and fought harder than the brown trout I\u2019d already caught,\u201d he says. \u201cIt never jumped, though, and a couple minutes later I got it close to the boat, and Benfield scooped it up in the net. The trout was not happy about being caught. It tore the back hook out of my plug when we put it in the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n Fulton thought his trout was a rainbow. But Benfield recognized the distinctive orange slashes on the underside of its lower jaw, and told Fulton it was a cutthroat.<\/p>\n \u201cRobbie fishes that tailrace a lot, and he knew the state record was smaller,\u201d Fulton says.<\/p>\n The anglers checked that record on their cell phones \u2014\u00a0a cutthroat that weighed 4 pounds 12 ounces and was also caught in the Boone tailwaters by 10-year-old Palmer Tipton in July 2023 \u2014 and started making phone calls. But it was after business hours by then, and the fishermen couldn\u2019t connect with state officials on how to proceed with Fulton\u2019s record size cutthroat trout. So they kept fishing until dark.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we got done fishing and hauled the boat out of the water, we knew we had to locate a certified scale to weigh my trout,\u201d Fulton said. \u201cWe had trouble locating a place to weigh the fish until we got to the H&H Market in Elizabethton.\u201d<\/p>\n There, on certified scales, the fish weighed 6 pounds 9 ounces \u2014 nearly two pounds heavier than the existing record. Fulton\u2019s fish measured 22 inches long with a 14.75-inch girth.<\/p>\n The buddies put the fish on ice until it could be inspected by state officials. Only July 2, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency fisheries biologist Sally Petre positively identified the trout as a cutthroat and verified the catch as the new state record<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cutthroat trout are not native to Tennessee. They are a Western state import that have been stocked in several Tennessee rivers<\/a>. In 2021, 2,500 cutthroats were stocked in the Boone tailrace area, and some of those fish are resurfacing now.<\/p>\n Read Next: <\/strong>The Biggest Fish Ever Caught<\/a><\/p>\n Cutthroats in the tailrace have done well, according to Petre and TWRA plans to stock more<\/a> this year. Other locations around the state also may be stocked with the hard-fighting trout.<\/p>\n \u201cCutthroat trout are really beautiful, and photos of my fish just don\u2019t do it justice,\u201d says Fulton. \u201cI\u2019m going to have the trout mounted by a taxidermist. And you can bet we\u2019ll be back after them again \u2026 Fishing is in my blood, it\u2019s what I live for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Charlie](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/cutthroat-fulton.jpg?w=1038\")
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