Lucy Spatafore held Minnesota's catch-and-release rainbow trout record for less than a year. The angler who took it from her was her own 12-year-old sister — and Lucy says she could not be prouder.
The handover happened on Mother's Day, May 10, on the Stewart River along Lake Superior's North Shore. Sadie Spatafore, a sixth grader from Maple Grove, landed a 30-inch rainbow with a 12.5-inch girth, eclipsing the 28.5-inch fish Lucy had registered the previous August from the very same river. Sadie's trout was measured, photographed and slipped back into the current; the Minnesota DNR has now certified it as the state's catch-and-release record.
The Spatafore family — Sadie, Lucy and dad Dave — makes a habit of wading the North Shore's rivers each spring to fly fish for lake-run rainbows pushing up to spawn. Dave describes the fish as "steelhead that run out of Lake Superior's north shore to spawn in the river," adding that because "they're protected by law, so it's all catch-and-release."
Sadie said seeing Lucy claim the record in 2025 is what motivated her to go after a bigger one. She also knows the North Shore rarely makes it easy.
"Sometimes we hike miles of streams and don't catch anything," she said. "But the scenery is beautiful — and if you do hook a fish, they fight like crazy."
The record fish came at the very end of a long, mostly fishless Mother's Day, at the family's last stop before heading home. "It was getting toward sunset when I hooked a big one on an egg fly," Sadie recalled. "It fought hard but didn't jump. Finally, I was able to land it... We took a few pictures and carefully released it back into the river."
Lucy recorded the catch and release on video, and the family filed the required paperwork with the state. Her reaction to losing the record was pure delight.
"There is nothing that makes me more proud than having my 12-year-old sister be the person to break my state record," Lucy told Minnesota Fish & Wildlife. "It was very special that we were all fishing together again when she broke it."
A note on terminology: the DNR records these as rainbow trout, though North Shore anglers often call them lake-run steelhead. Strictly, steelhead are the sea-run form, so West Coast purists would not use the label for a lake-run fish. Either way, the Stewart River's rainbows fight with the same ferocity that has made them a cult favorite among Great Lakes anglers — and the record now sits with the youngest member of a family that will almost certainly be back on the river next spring.
