Washington State - 3 New Records

OLYMPIA - Three Washington state anglers have set new state sport fishing records, according to statistics kept by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).

On July 8, Andrew Kneipp of Bremerton was salmon fishing out of Sekiu when he landed a 6.05-pound sockeye salmon. Because of their normally planktonic diet, sockeye are an uncommon catch in saltwater by sport anglers, and the record had never been claimed. Kneipp's sockeye struck a trolled herring with beads.

On Sept. 25, Tom Duttrey of Sequim caught a 3.7-pound jackmackerel on an artificial squid, fishing out of Sekiu. Jackmackerel are a fairly common catch in Washington waters, usually by accident when salmon fishing, but a record had not previously been applied for.

Also on Sept. 25, John E. Moore of Mount Vernon re-claimed his record for tiger trout, a brown trout-brook trout hybrid, with a 1.89-pound fish from an unnamed lake in Okanogan County. Moore caught the record fish on a spinner. He had previously held the record until July of this year, when Robert Mattila of Bothell caught a slightly bigger tiger trout. WDFW maintains a complete list of state sport fishing records on the Internet.