Joe Bouta of Benson, Minnesota was fishing with the Lake Superior Jigging Guide Service on May 9 when he hooked a gigantic lake trout that edged out the catch-and-release record for the state of Minnesota. Bouta’s guide, Ethan Waytashek, knew it was a new state record almost immediately because he’d just helped another client net the standing record the previous month.
Bouta was fishing in deep, white-capped waters, braving 15 to 20 mile-per-hour wind gusts, when the fish hit. Waytashek had spotted it with a 2D fish finder just moments before.
According to Bouta’s son Andrew, who was on board when he caught record-breaking trout, it took a full 15 minutes for his dad to land it. It was Bouta’s second-ever lake trout. He caught his first earlier in the trip, that same day.
“We were supposed to fish the Michigan side of the lake that morning, but the wind was just too bad, so Ethan came up with an alternate game plan,” Andrew tells Field & Stream. “We were vertical jigging in 100 feet of water, and it just slammed into his tube jig. He kept the pressure on it the whole time until Ethan finally got it in the net.”
After netting the fish, Waytashek measured it at 44.5 inches. It bested the previous record, a 44-incher caught by Matthew Hammer back in April, by a half inch.
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Like Bouta, Hammer had been jigging with Waytashek in Lake Superior when he caught his record trout. Announced by the Minnesota DNR on May 18, Hammer’s fish unseated a record laker that another one of Waytashek’s clients caught in March 2025, which measured 43.25-inches. Amazingly, another client of Waytasheks held the state record for lake trout before that.
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