Another whopper whitefish

The Daily Inter Lake

Five-day-old fish record broken

Maybe it's the water.

Something seems to be happening at Little Bitterroot Lake, where the second straight record pygmy whitefish this winter was caught Monday.

Alvin Ammann fishes Little Bitterroot Lake about four times a week and often catches pygmy whitefish. Monday's catch stood out from the rest.

"I decided to take that sucker down to Fish, Wildlife and Parks," he said.

After getting the fish weighed on a registered scale, Ammann took it to state fisheries biologists Jon Cavigli and Mark Deleray, who examined and measured the specimen and certified it as a state record.

The pygmy whitefish weighed 3.4 ounces (about .21 pounds), eclipsing the previous record of 3.2 ounces (.20 pounds) caught in late January by Brent Mitchell, whose record was certified just last Wednesday.

Ammann's new record fish measures 8.4 inches, .4 inches longer than Mitchell's catch.

Mitchell caught his record fish at a water depth of 109 feet; Ammann caught his fish at 110 feet.

Deleray cited a variety of reasons for two record fish coming from a lake in less than a month.

For starters, he said, Little Bitterroot and Ashley lakes seem to be providing habitat conditions that will grow larger pygmy whitefish. Second, he said kokanee anglers have been fishing near the bottom lately, which just happens to be the favored location for pygmy whitefish.

Finally, Deleray guesses that some anglers may be more aware of pygmy whitefish and the fact that an 8-inch fish might be close to a state record.

"Where they may have released those fish in the past, now they have an eye for pygmy whitefish," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if someone catches a bigger pygmy whitefish in the near future with the media attention they are getting."

Mitchell now has the distinction of holding a Montana fish record for only five days.

"I thought it was great," Ammann said. "I guess I just out-fished the last guy."

The pygmy, along with the larger mountain whitefish, is native to Montana, while the lake whitefish was introduced to state waters.

The pygmy is distinguished from the mountain whitefish by its very large eye in relation to its size. Pygmy whitefish feed on tiny zooplankton, bottom insects and mysis shrimp.