When Richard Courtright walked down to the West Branch of the Farmington River in Riverton, Connecticut, on April 11, he was looking at what he assumed was a submerged boulder. It moved.
"I thought it was a log at first and then I saw its head, and I freaked out," the 20-year-old from Bethel said. The fish was a rainbow trout — and not just any rainbow. At 16 pounds, 7.5 ounces, 31 inches long with a 21.25-inch girth, it would be certified by the Connecticut Fisheries Division as a new state record, eclipsing a mark of 14 pounds, 10 ounces that had stood since 1998.
What makes the catch unusual is the tackle. Courtright was not throwing heavy gear for trophy fish. He was using a 4-foot-8-inch ultralight rod his uncle had given him, an old Penn spinning reel from his father, and 6-pound test line. After working through his lures without a take, he went back to his vehicle for live meal worms, threaded one on a size 8 hook with a split shot, and let it drift.
"I made a dozen casts without spooking him, then finally he hit my worm," Courtright said. The trout ran for nearly 10 minutes without jumping before he steered it close. "I got it to circle close enough one time, and I 'long-armed' it with my net."
His father, Richard Courtright Sr., had driven out after his son phoned to say he was staring at a potential record. He could only stand and watch. "All I could do was watch. I couldn't even help him net the fish," he said. "Just to be with him and watch him catch the fish, it means a lot to me."
The backstory is as strange as the catch. According to Matt Devine, a fisheries biologist with the Connecticut Fisheries Division, the rainbow had been raised at the Kensington State Fish Hatchery, where it spent several years living alongside Atlantic salmon — its job was to coax the salmon into feeding on pellets.
"Sometimes Atlantic salmon just need a little nudge to feed properly," Devine said. Fish like this one fatten up over years on hatchery feed, then are released to anglers near the end of their working lives. "These fish reach the end of their potential," Devine said, "and then their job after that is to go make a memory for someone."
This one had been stocked into the river only the day before Courtright caught it — a detail that takes nothing away from the result on the books, but explains how a fish that size came to be swimming in a river stretch where anglers were still casting from the banks.
Courtright had spotted the fish almost by accident. "There were still some guys along the banks casting for trout when I got near the water," he said. "I could see that it was a big trout, much bigger than the boulder. That's when I called my dad and told him I was looking at a state-record rainbow." The record now belongs to a 20-year-old fishing with a borrowed ultralight and a live worm — a reminder that on the right morning, the biggest fish in the state can fall to the simplest rig.