Angler catches giant brook trout
HEBER SPRINGS — Megan Gray might have caught the biggest brook trout in Arkansas on Oct. 17, and anglers still have a chance to catch it again.
Gray landed a brook trout approaching the 5-pound state-record mark from the Little Red River. She caught the fish in the catch-and-release area below Greers Ferry Dam. This prevented her from establishing an official weight, but Gray and other anglers took photos alongside her fly-fishing rod to measure its length and estimate its girth from that measurement.
The fish was nearly as fat as it was long, measuring 17.4 inches from nose to tail and a about 15.3 inches around. Gray has also caught a 15-pound brown trout from the Little Red River.
“I’ve fly fished since I was probably around 4 or 5 years old,” Gray said. “My dad would take me to Dry Run Creek on Norfork, which is reserved for young anglers. Once I could travel on my own, a friend and I would go all the time and visit new areas. Greers Ferry is about an hour from Hendrix [College], and my family bought some land up there, so I go there a lot.”
Gray caught the fish with an orange egg pattern fly.
Nearby, coincidentally, were world-renowned Mountain Home artist Duane Hada and his longtime friend Gregg Patterson. Patterson shot the famous photo of Rip Collins’ world-record brown trout on the Little Red in 1992. Hada has made many trout replicas from photos and measurements, but Gray’s fish stands out.
“This is the biggest brook trout I’ve ever seen caught in Arkansas,” Hada said. “I know the state record was 5 pounds, 18 inches long and had an 18-inch girth. I’ve done replicas of trout that were longer than 18 inches but didn’t have the weight of this fish. This one had a big hump back and was really big around. And it was marked up beautifully. It’s truly the fish of a lifetime.”
Christy Graham, trout program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said that brook trout have been stocked from the Greers Ferry National Fish Hatchery periodically in the Little Red River since 1994. They were stocked annually from 1994-2007, then intermittently since then. Roughly 7,000 6- to 9-inch brook trout were stocked earlier this year, and about 1,640 were stocked in 2021.