Thirteen-year-old Jaxon Krall was fishing from the banks of Lake Viva Naughton near his hometown of Kemmerer, Wyoming in late July when he caught a massive, 12.77-pound tiger trout. It was the first tiger trout he’d ever caught there, and the fish dethroned the previous state record that was caught on the same lake the year prior. The Wyoming Fish and Game Department made the new record official on Monday.
“I knew when I hooked it that it was big,” Krall told WGFD.
Krall said he was fishing from the shore “for anything that would bite” when the monster trout grabbed his lure. He was using a Thomas Buoyant spoon, an old-school lure that mimics the erratic swimming behavior of a fleeing baitfish.
Although it’s the first tiger trout he’s caught from the reservoir, Krall said he’s confident it won’t be his last, and that he plans to release any that he catches in the future. He said he’s pretty sure there are even bigger tigers swimming in Viva Naughton.
His record-breaking catch measured 31.25 inches long and had a girth of 16.75 inches. The trout edged out the standing state record of 11.93 pounds, which also came from Viva Naughton and was caught by Owen Schaad in 2023. The previous record had stood for 11 years prior to Schaad’s catch.
Located 16 miles north of Kemmerer, Lake Viva Naughton is one of several reservoirs that WGFD stocks with tiger trout, a sterile hybrid species that’s a cross between a female brown trout and a male brook trout. The two trout species rarely hybridize in the wild, and the vast majority of tigers are raised in hatcheries. These fish are aggressive predators, and because they’re sterile, fisheries biologists in several states are using them to control problematic fish populations. Tiger trout also have a larger gape size than browns and brook trout, which allows them to eat bigger fish.
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Using brood stock from Utah hatcheries, Wyoming started stocking tiger trout in 2005, and WGFD has released more than 92,000 tigers across the state since then. The agency says it has been planting the hybrids in Lake Viva Naughton since 2014, and they’ve helped control the growing population of Utah chubs there.
“They are found close to structures,” WGFD fisheries supervisor Robb Keith says, offering a bit of advice for anglers looking to catch their first tiger trout. “They are eating shiners and Utah chubs, so anglers should choose lures, flies, and baits that resemble these forage fish.”
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