I was getting ready to let the fish go when we realized this thing could be a state record."

Dietz is almost exclusively a catch-and-release angler — but he kept this fish, bringing it to Newport Avenue Market in Bend for an official weigh-in on an Oregon Dept of Agriculture scale, as required under the record rules.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife certified the fish as the new state record mountain whitefish on Jan. 7, beating the previous record, a 4-pound, 14-ounce mountain whitefish caught at Crane Prairie Reservoir in 1994 by Roger A Massey.