Torch Lake Atlantic Salmon recognized as World Record

Matt SupinskiTom Aufiero of Lafayette Ind., holds up
the new IGFA world record landlocked Atlantic salmon
he caught on a fly last October while fishing Torch Lake.
The fish weighed 26 pounds, 12 ounces.

The Department of Natural Resources has announced that the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) has recognized an Atlantic salmon caught at Torch Lake in Antrim County last October as a world record for land-locked Atlantics.

The record Atlantic salmon, caught by Indiana resident Tom Aufiero, weighed 26 pounds, 12 ounces. Aufiero, who caught the fish while fly fishing with a shrimp pattern, released the fish after weighing it.

IGFA regulations require that scales used to weigh potential record fish must have been calibrated and certified as accurate within a year of the catch. Aufiero’s salmon was weighed on an uncertified hand-held scale, but the scale was sent to the IGFA, which tested it and certified it as accurate.

The IGFA certified the record March 7, 2011.

“It doesn’t surprise me to see a 26-pound Atlantic come out of Torch Lake,” said DNR fisheries biologist Mark Tonello of Cadillac. “We know Torch Lake is capable of producing big lake trout, big muskies, and last year someone caught a 29-pound brown trout there.”

The previous IGFA all-tackle world record for land-locked salmon was a 24-pound, 11-ounce specimen caught in Sweden in June 2010.

Torch Lake was last stocked with Atlantic salmon in 2008.

For more information about fishing opportunities in Michigan, go to www.michigan.gov/dnrfishing.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is committed to the conservation, protection, management, use and enjoyment of the state’s natural and cultural resources for current and future generations. For more information, go to www.michigan.gov/dnr.