GREEN RIVER, Wyo. (AP) – Some people catch fish and release them. Bill Wengert releases them and then catches them – a quarter-century later.

In April 1983, Wengert and other state Game and Fish Department biologists stocked some 12,000 young trout in the Flaming Gorge Reservoir in southwest Wyoming.

Game and Fish spokeswoman Lucy Wold said Wengert was ice fishing recently on the reservoir and caught a 23-inch trout.

Wengert noticed the trout’s right pelvic fin had been clipped, indicating it was a hatchery fish that had been stocked. Examining historical stocking data, Wengert determined the fish was stocked on April 14, 1983.

Wengert estimated the trout was 26 years old because stocked fish spend a year in a hatchery before being released. But he said it was very skinny, weighing only 2.5 pounds, compared to a trout released at the same time that weighed 17 pounds when it was caught in 2004.