Angler Tom Hunt set a new Wyoming state record for white sucker on April 17, 2011 while fishing on the BigHorn River near Thermopolis.
After catching several trout, something different took his night crawler. From experience he said he knew it wasn’t a trout since “trout usually take the bait and move off, while carp and suckers when biting, stay in one spot.”
When he hooked the fish he knew it was big and thought it was a carp. On the way home the angler began thinking that was the biggest sucker he had caught and decided to check the Wyoming state record.
Hunt’s catch weighed in at 4 lbs. 4 oz., was 21 inches long and had a girth of nearly 13.5 inches putting it nearly a half pound heavier than the existing record, also caught out of the Big Horn River. The world record white sucker weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz and was caught from a lake in Wisconsin in 1978.
To qualify for a new fish record, anglers need to get the fish weighed on a certified scale and have it verified by the Game and Fish Department. A listing of state record fish is on the Game and Fish website at http://gf.state.wy.us
source: Wyoming Game and Fish Department