LARAMIE - The last cast of the day with a leader mismatched for a small dry fly turned out to be the unlikely recipe for a new state record splake - a brook trout/lake trout hybrid.

Christian Van Kirk had worked his no. 14 Nelson Caddis fly to about 25 feet from shore when the water erupted and his dad exclaimed, "Oh my God! What was that?"

Then the 15-minute battle ensued late afternoon Sept. 11 on Libby Lake west of Centennial in the Snowy Range. Before Christian hardly had time to react, the fish had made a 60-yard-run stripping out all his fly line and most of his backing. Thinking it was probably a large brook trout, Van Kirk was forced to frantically reel to keep tension on the line as the fish ran back to within 30 feet from him.

There the fourth-year University of Colorado medical student was able to out slug the large fish, with an assist from a good-sized fish in Klondike Lake. Fishing that lake earlier in the afternoon, Van Kirk spied a hefty brook trout and switched to a heavier leader to entice it with a streamer and left the 3X, 8- to 9-pound test tippet rigged up.

"I never fish dry flies with that big of tippet," he said. "But there is no way I would have landed the fish without it."

He gradually coaxed the fish to shore, while being stunned at its size when it would roll on the surface. Attempts by his dad to fit the monster into a pan-sized net proved futile. So, Ed Van Kirk of Laramie waded in and scooped the fish into shore with his arms. There the father-son team stood for "maybe 10 minutes" in near disbelief at the enormity of the 30.5-inch, 12.74-pound fish.

Splake are stocked in several Snowy Range lakes - but not directly in Libby. The Game and Fish Department’s Regional Fish Supervisor Mike Snigg says splake have been stocked into Lewis Lake every other year since 1984 to help control brook trout and suckers and occasionally wash down the drainage into Libby Lake. He guesses Van Kirk’s new state record to be 15 to 20 years old.

"I was flabbergasted and delighted to see a fish that big and in that good of condition come from an alpine lake," Snigg said of the fish sporting a 19-inch girth.

The previous Wyoming record weighed 11.52 pounds and was taken from Hog Park Reservoir on July 4, 1999. A 4-pound fish from Lewis Lake held the record from August 1992 to May 1996. The North American record weighed 20 pounds 11 ounces and was caught May 17, 1987 out of Lake Ontario in Ontario, Canada.