Coeur d'Alene Angler Lands Record 27-Inch Cutthroat From Lake Pend Oreille

Kyle Hatrock had barely finished setting his lines on Lake Pend Oreille when one of his poles started singing. What followed was a 15-to-20-minute battle that would end with a new Idaho state record.

Hatrock, a Coeur d'Alene angler, landed a 27-inch Westslope cutthroat trout from the lake on Feb. 1, a catch the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has since certified as the new state record for the species. The fish topped the previous record by two inches.

"We'd just got all the lines out when not 10 minutes later, one pole starts singing out the line," Hatrock said. "The first run took out 450 feet-plus for about 15–20 minutes, and as soon as it hit the net, my friend started freaking out, saying 'That's the biggest freaking cutty I've ever seen!'"

Hatrock and his fishing partners immediately broke out a tape measure. Their suspicion was confirmed: the trout had edged out the previous state record held by Daniel Whitesitt, whose 25-inch Westslope cutthroat, caught in the Clark Fork River, had stood as the benchmark.

Fish and Game officials noted that the record fish was caught from the lake itself, not one of its tributaries, a distinction the agency highlighted in its announcement. That detail matters because Westslope cutthroat in open lake environments capable of producing a 27-inch specimen are rare. The species rarely surpasses 20 inches under typical conditions, making Hatrock's fish not just a record but an outlier by nearly half a foot.

Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho's deepest lake at 1,158 feet and stretching roughly 43 miles from end to end, has long drawn serious trout anglers from across the Northwest. Fish and Game said the catch reinforces the lake's standing as Idaho's top trophy trout fishery.

The Westslope cutthroat is native to Columbia River Basin tributaries across central and northern Idaho and into British Columbia, according to IDFG, which notes the subspecies is widely distributed across the Salmon, Clearwater, Coeur d'Alene and Clark Fork river systems. The department recognizes separate catch-and-release state records for Westslope cutthroat, as well as for the Bonneville and Yellowstone subspecies and introduced Lahontan cutthroat, meaning Hatrock's certified measurement stands as the official length record for the species in Idaho.