Strange Catch: A Real Fur-bearing Trout?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on May 8th, 2015
Cryptomundo received the following image by email two days ago.
This is the text from the email.
Wanted to share a rather remarkable catch I had this afternoon. I was fishing the Menomonee River near Milwaukee where some trout were packed into a bottleneck. I caught a few and nothing was out of the ordinary until I reeled this one in. I have never seen anything like it.
I contacted a local wildlife official and they referred to it as a rare fur-bearing trout. They went on to explain that this was an extreme case of Saprolegnia, or cotton mold. Apparently old Great Lakes legends spoke of these as a uniquely evolved trout species that existed only in the deepest, coldest parts of the lakes and needed the fur to stay warm.
I doubt it will make Cabella’s non-traditional mount wall but I’m still excited to reel in a genuine Wisconsin legend! You have my permission to share and use this photo in any form you’d like. You can credit George Bower.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Mount him and hang it next to the Jackalope.
Karl Shukar posted the same image on the Cryptozoology Facebook Group yesterday.
Saprolegnia, to my knowledge, grows as rather fine filaments, and the thick coat that appears in this image seems unlike it. Additionally, it seems to grow on the head and tail just as readily as the body, unlike what appears here.
I have seen Koi and other fish with Saprolegnia and out of the water the mold has the appearance of slime covering certain areas of the fish. It doesn’t mat together like the fur which is what is being used to cover this fish. This is a gag image trying to promote the “Furred Trout” myth to those who don’t know better. Pretty funny actually. At least the image is in focus…
Well, I do like eating things that fishy, but the problem is, you always end up with a hair stuck on the tip of your tongue.