PERU, N.Y. – A North Country woman who last week landed a lake trout with two mouths while fishing on Lake Champlain is now having second thoughts about her decision to let it go – particularly since a picture of it has gone viral and become an Internet sensation.

“I’ve thought about it, wondering if we should have kept it,” Debbie Geddes told NYup.com. “My husband and I fish together all the time on Lake Champlain. We’ve seen other deformities, but this was unique.”

Geddes, 57, of Peru, was out fishing on Friday evening (Aug. 16) with her husband, William, on the New York side of the lake between Plattsburgh and Peru when the fish hit. They were trolling at the time in their pontoon boat in about 80 feet of water. The fish grabbed a small, blue and white Evil Eye lure.

“At first I thought it was a big fish because of the resistance it put up. Probably because of the two mouths. It was also because I had a lot of line out,” she said.

After a few minutes, she got it close to the boat and her husband netted it. It was hooked in the lower lip of the lower mouth. Geddes estimated the odd-looking fish was 4 1/1 to 5 pounds and measured about 23 inches.

“I figured it was a healthy fish. So after I took a picture of my husband holding it, it went back in the water. I figured, ‘Let it live.’ “ she said.

She shared the photo with Adam Facteau, a co-worker of hers at Champlain Educational Services. Facteau then shared it on the Knotty Boys Fishing Team Facebook page. The fishing team, she said, is a group of anglers who compete in local bass fishing tournaments.

It was Facteau’s Facebook post that was shared all over the country and beyond, showing up in such places as the U.K. and Germany, she said.

Geddes said she’s received phone calls from journalists all over the country the past few days. Her story and the picture of the fish ran on Fox National News.

The two-headed fish wasn’t the only highlight of the evening, she said.

“My husband caught a 10.8-pound laker, ” she said.

What could have caused Geddes’ fish to have two mouths? Was it genetics or a past injury?

A Harvard researcher, consulted in 2013 by anglersfile.blogspot.com about a trout with a similar appearance that was caught in Massachusetts at that time, said it was most likely the latter. In that case, the angler had snapped photos, severed the fish’s head with the two mouths and put it in his freezer. He sent it away to be analyzed.

“Our preliminary analysis of the ‘two-mouthed’ trout revealed that the condition was caused by an injury to the fish earlier in its life, rather than a genetic repeat or other mutation,” James Lee, a research fellow at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, told the website in an email.

Lee wrote “it appeared that a muscle in the trout’s mouth was severed in the past, causing thin membranes between the lower jaw bone and the floor of the mouth to split.” He said that caused the floor of the mouth to drop.

“This gives the appearance of two jaws. It also results in the fish having no practical floor to its mouth,” he said.

Of note is the fact that New York also has a legend about a two-headed trout -- one shared for years among anglers in the Catskills about a fish that’s yet to be caught.

It’s about the Beamoc, a trout that supposedly lives in Junction Pool in Roscoe, where the waters of the Beaverkill River and Willowemoc Creek converge in northern Sullivan County. The story goes that the fish grew two heads as it kept trying to decide which way to swim -- up the Beaverkill or the Willowemoc.

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