Hay River (Dec 13/04) - A whitefish pulled from Great Slave Lake in April has been confirmed as the largest of the species ever caught anywhere in the world.

So says a report on the fish by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).

But that was no surprise to Jerry Morin, the Hay River fisherman who owned the nets in which the massive fish was caught.

"I kind of knew it was a world record," he said.

It weighed in at a whopping 14.51kg (32lb) when pulled from the lake. At the fish plant in Hay River, it officially tipped the scales at 13.25kg (29.21lb).

It is the heaviest and longest (92.8cm) confirmed report of a whitefish ever recorded. It was about six times heavier than the largest fish of equivalent age captured recently.

An anecdotal report of a 19kg (42 pound) whitefish from Lake Superior in 1918 cannot be confirmed. The largest ever recorded out of Great Slave Lake was a 22-pounder in 1961.

A normal whitefish weighs several pounds.

Morin says he knew his fish was a world record since May, but waited until it returned from a taxidermist to make the fact public. The mounted fish arrived Dec. 8.

"Now that it has been confirmed it is a world record, there's probably going to be more interest," Morin predicts.

"It's one in a million or one in a billion," says George Low, a fisheries management biologist with DFO in Hay River.

The fish was examined by Dr. James Reist, a research scientist and head of DFO's Arctic Fish Ecology and Assessment Research Section in Winnipeg. Reist studied the fish after it was sent to a taxidermist in the Manitoba capital.

His report will be printed in the scientific journal "Arctic."

When it was caught, there was speculation the fish could be between 40-60 years old. However, it was determined the fish was only about 18 years old.

It was not a whitefish-inconnu hybrid, which could have explained the large size.

The sex of the fish could not be determined.

"We conclude that this extremely large individual is, in fact, a lake whitefish that experienced abnormal development in that it never attained sexual maturity," the report states. "Rather, all excess energy accumulated appears to have been channelled into fat storage and subsequently into growth."

The record fish was taken from under the ice off Grant Point, between the Taltson and Slave Rivers.

The report suggests further investigation to see if other fish in the area have reached such a large size.

For now, the whitefish -- known as Big Georgie -- is on a wall at the NWT Centennial Library in Hay River, and will be there until mid-January.

Morin is not sure what he will eventually do with the fish.

"I'll probably keep it," he said.

However, he is thinking of also displaying it in Yellowknife.

Morin has even contacted The Guinness Book of World Records, but discovered it doesn't include records on fish.

Even though the mounted fish is gigantic, Morin says it did shrink a bit during the taxidermy process. Plus, he says the colour is a bit too dark.