

The fish appeared to be covered in a coat of white fur. Image Credit: George Bower

One fisherman got more than he bargained for when he hooked a trout while fishing near Milwaukee.

It had been an otherwise unremarkable day out fishing along the Menomonee River when George Bower, who had been catching trout that were packed in to a bottleneck, reeled in one particularly bizarre specimen that appeared to be covered in white fur.The catch seemed to match the local legend of the infamous 'fur-bearing trout', a fictional creature that was said to have developed a thick coat of fur all over its body to maintain heat.The myth of this peculiar animal was particularly prevalent all the way up to the 1930s thanks to a spate of hoaxed specimens such as that produced by taxidermist Ross C. Jobe which turned out to be nothing more than a regular fish with a coat of rabbit fur attached to its body. (What exactly it is that Bower caught on his line in Wisconsin however remains unclear.While it is obviously not the fabled fur-bearing trout from the legend, some believe that the fish he reeled in may have been suffering from what is thought to be an extreme case of cotton mold, a condition that can produce a white furry appearance.Critics on the other hand argue that the amount of mold coverage is far too excessive to have occurred naturally and that the photograph is likely to be a hoax."I contacted a local wildlife official and they referred to it as a rare fur-bearing trout," Bower told us in an e-mail. "They went on to explain that this was an extreme case of Saprolegnia, or cotton mold.""I doubt it will make Cabella's non-traditional mount wall but I'm still excited to reel in a genuine Wisconsin legend!"