Record Westslope Cutthroat Trout Caught in Idaho Stuns Biologists
An Unusual State Record
Luke Anderson landed Idaho’s newest certified-weight state record for Westslope cutthroat trout on the St. Maries River, a fish measuring 13.6 inches and weighing under one pound. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game announced the record on July 23, 2026. What makes the mark notable is not its size but how small it is for one of the state’s most iconic native trout.
Westslope cutthroat in Idaho grow far larger than Anderson’s fish. The state’s current catch-and-release record, caught in Lake Pend Oreille, measured 27 inches, and the certified-weight record just across the border in Washington stands at 4.71 pounds. The explanation for such a modest Idaho record lies in decades of fisheries management history and recent changes to the State Record Fish Program.
Changes to the Record Program
Until recently, Idaho’s State Record Fish Program recognized only a single category for cutthroat trout. For years, the certified-weight record was an 18.94-pound fish caught at Bear Lake by Roger Grunig in 1970. In 2016, Fish and Game revamped the program, adding a catch-and-release category and creating separate record categories for all four subspecies found in Idaho: Westslope, Bonneville, Yellowstone and Lahontan cutthroat trout.
The Bear Lake fish still holds the top spot for Bonneville cutthroat, but the 2016 changes opened opportunities for records in the three other subspecies. Those categories have only been available since then, which is part of why the Westslope record remains small.
A Conservation Story
Cutthroat trout populations declined significantly across their range after Western settlement, driven by overfishing, habitat loss, and the stocking of non-native brook, brown, and rainbow trout. Logging, mining, road building, and pollution degraded trout habitat, and many of the laws regulating those industries did not arrive until the 1970s. By the 1960s, biologists were documenting significant declines statewide.
In the early 1970s, Idaho fisheries managers implemented some of the first restrictive fishing regulations, including lower bag limits and catch-and-release rules across much of the state. Landmark environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Wilderness Act followed, addressing habitat damage, and more recent habitat restoration projects have added to the recovery. Fishing regulations that limit or prohibit keeping Westslope cutthroat in many places have made it difficult for anglers to legally harvest and weigh record-sized fish.
Recovery and Record
The results have been encouraging. Westslope cutthroat now occupy roughly 80% of their historic range within Idaho, and many populations have rebounded substantially. Harvest has long been allowed in stocked lakes, and some additional waters are beginning to see limited harvest return. Regulations on the Selway River, for example, recently changed from catch-and-release only to allow some limited harvest. Anderson’s modest record, then, is really a marker of a broader conservation success, and if it inspires other anglers to challenge it, Fish and Game would welcome the attempt.
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