NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Writing a story about a big fish is pretty sweet duty, unless said fish has a name that may or may not be suitable for a family newspaper.
I’m saying it’s not. My boss says it is. So here goes.
Arkansas Game & Fish Commission fisheries biologist Jon Stein and crew shocked up a 25-pound brown trout on the White River below Beaver Dam on July 19 during a nighttime electrofishing study.
It’s not the first time these men of fish have cradled the trophy trout in their arms while they’ve weighed and measured it, then let it go.
This fish loves electricity.
They’ve shocked it up so many times they’ve given the trout aname. They’ve nicknamed it “Ole Whup ... ”
Oh heck I just can’t say it. Insert a word that rhymes with bass.
What fun we have here in the newsroom. Not many jobs where part of the workday is spent debating whether we can say “whup ... ” in the newspaper.
The boss says it’s OK as long as it’s in quotation marks because the biologists nicknamed the fi sh. But I’m not going to do it. The newspaper is the last harbor of clean language and I hope it stays that way.
Anyway, “Ole Whup ... ” hangs out in the same hole on the White River about two miles below Beaver Dam. That’s where they always shock up this seeker of high voltage.
“Ole Whup ... ” weighed about 19 pounds the first time I saw the fish in 2004 when I tagged along on an electrofishing study. Stein said the trout now weighs 25 pounds and measured 31.5 inches long on thislatest encounter.
“He came up right under the boat. I had a hard time getting it into the net. I thought it was a striper at fi rst,” Stein said.
“Ole Whup ... ” has given at least one angler the slip. Stein said there was a piece of fishing line sticking out of its throat like it had broken someone’s line.
There’s no way to know for sure this was “Ole Whup ... ,” but Stein says there’s a good chance it was since the fish came up in the same area it always does..
I’m cheering for “Ole Whup ... ” and hope he kicks the butt of any fisherman lucky enough to hook him.
FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
Outdoor, Pages 7 on 07/29/2010