On June 9, a Virginia angler landed a huge 14-pound 12-ounce rainbow trout, breaking the state record, according to a recent release from the state department of wildlife resources. Grant Bentz thought the fish was merely a personal best until he decided to look up the current state record on his drive home, which was set in June 1993 by Michael Lowe with a 14-pound 7-ounce rainbow. Bentz had won out that day, but it wasn’t the first time he hooked up with his record-breaker.
Bentz caught his mammoth rainbow in Spring Creek and says his catch is a bit more special because the previous record was logged by angler Michael Lowe before the rules were changed regarding record catches in the state.
“The previous record had been set prior to the rewriting of the rules, and it came from a trout farm,” Bentz told the Virginia DWR. “My fish had obviously been stocked at one point, but it had been swimming free and growing up in the wild for a number of years, which is cool.”
Bentz, who hails from McGaheyesville, Virginia, said he caught the rainbow on private property where he has permission to fish.
“It’s basically where the stream goes from flat water to high gradient and rapids,” he said. “It seems like bigger trout get to that point and kind of stall out because it’s harder for them to push up past that. I never thought I’d be in this position. I’m not a record-chaser, but the existing record had stood for more than 30 years. After I recognized what I had, I figured I had to seize this opportunity.”
“I’ve fished this stream for probably 20-plus years, and I have caught some really nice trout out of it. It’s not stocked water, it’s all private land, but this stream connects to several other rivers that receive stockings,” he continued. “So, trout have the opportunity to grow up and to gain some size, but I never expected to catch one quite like this.”
The Catch: Second Chances Are Real
New Virginia State Record Rainbow Trout Stats
Date Caught: June 9, 2024
Angler: Grant Bentz
Weight: 14 pounds, 12 ounces
Length: 33 inches
Girth: 19.5 inches
Location: Spring Creek
Prev. Record: 14 pounds, 7 ounces
“Typically, my good fishing is when the rainbows show up during the spring spawn, traveling upstream. This past spring, I fished this stream several times casually and didn’t really find anything that got me excited.”
That all changed on June 8. It was his last cast of the day and he was throwing a Gulp! Minnow on a jighead.
“I saw this huge flash deep in the pool. The large head came up and gulped the jig,” he said. “I set the hook, and the battle ensued. It was five minutes of chasing this fish. I was wearing waders, and I was running up and down the stream, because it couldn’t stop it. It was just so big. I finally got it to the net, but because it was just too heavy, the jighead bent, and I lost the fish.”
He was crestfallen, but it wouldn’t be his last chance. He decided to come back the next day with different tackle. The stream has a lot of brush and overhanging trees, so big gear is out.
“I stuck with a 5-foot ultralight rod, but I came back the next morning spooled up with 10-pound braid and put on a circle hook with a whole nightcrawler I gathered, which seems to be what big trout will eat.”
It seemed he and the monster rainbow were fated for each other; on his first cast of the morning on June 9, Bentz hooked the same trout again, and fought it for about five minutes. He got it right to his net, but his line had frayed against the fish’s teeth and it snapped at the last moment.
This time, Bentz got a good look at the trout and estimated it to be about 12 pounds, which would have been beyond PR territory for him. Even after losing the fish again, he was undeterred.
“I’d lost it twice now, but this had happened to me before on smaller fish,” Bentz said. “I figured I’d just give him a little time to calm down, because larger fish in a small stream like that, they’re hungry all the time. So typically, if you give them some time to forget about what happened, they’ll eat again. So, I visited with the landowner, had a couple cups of coffee, and tried to regroup a little bit.”
An hour later, he returned and threw a few casts, and his fish bit again.
“It was still a big fight, but I feel like the fish had used up a lot of its energy during the first fight,” he said. “It was still a struggle, but eventually I got him into the net, which was only about half the size it needed to be. I coaxed him up onto the bank, and then actually laid eyes on the fish out of the water. I thought, ‘Oh, that fish is bigger than 12 pounds!’”
He took photos and measured the fish, officially recording a length of 33 inches and a girth of 19 1/2 inches. When he broke out his handheld scale and saw 14 pounds, 12 ounces, Bentz said it “blew his mind.”
When he realized the fish in his cooler was a new state record, he stopped to weigh it on a certified scale at the Stokesville Market in Mt. Solon where it was verified by a Virginia DWR employee. The next day, he took his new state record rainbow trout to the DWR office in Verona for an official inspection and to fill out a record application.
What’s Next for Grant Bentz’s Virginia Record Rainbow Trout?
While Bentz says he plans to have a replica made of his state record-breaking rainbow trout, the actual fish has joined the cycle of life. Surprisingly to some, he fileted, cooked, and ate his rainbow.
“I know a lot of people don’t approve of that, but in this stream, depending on weather conditions during the summer, the water levels really get low and the water warms up, so the odds of survival for big trout are pretty slim,” he said.
“I did eat this fish after it was weighed and recorded,” he added. “There’s this misconception that large trout don’t taste good, but I find they do. This one had crimson filets that looked like a salmon and tasted great.”
