A Durango man pulled a hefty prize from the Animas River on Friday: a 28.5-inch female rainbow trout.

Rob Thomas was fishing with a friend behind the Powerhouse Science Center early Friday afternoon when he felt the abrasive tug on the end of the pole that’s every fisherman’s dream.

“I said a prayer right before,” said Thomas, who used a 12-pound test line.

The strength of the fish broke the fishing pole into three pieces, but the line endured, Thomas said.

The trout was then hauled from the river and plunked personally onto the floor of The Durango Herald’s office.

Thomas has been a local resident since 1977, but he said never in his 39 years in Durango has he scored a fish of that size.

He said the catch was a reassurance after last summer’s Gold King Mine spill, which polluted the Animas and San Juan rivers with 3 million gallons of acid mine drainage.

“When I saw that orange marmalade coming downstream, I didn’t think I’d ever get anything out of there again,” Thomas said.

Thomas’ trout was about six inches shy of breaking a state record for length for rainbow trout. The title-holder reeled in a 34-inch catch in 2003 from the Morrow Point Reservoir in Gunnison.

Under Colorado Parks and Wildlife size regulations, Thomas was not required to release the fish. Agency spokesperson Joe Lewandowski said larger fish are becoming typical for the Animas River.

“There’s still fish in there, but we’re not getting the amount of reproduction we’d like to see, so we haven’t seen a lot of smaller fish,” he said. “When you survey a river, you look for age class, and you want to see a variety of sizes. Our age classes in the Animas haven’t looked good in several years, and that’s because of the various metals and urban-type pollution in the river and less snowpack.”

jpace@durangoherald.com