This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Russell Nielson throws a javelin like a champion. He is also apparently quite an angler.The Southern Utah University student, who won the javelin throw at the Big Sky Track & Field championships in mid-May with a huck of 204-feet and nine inches, caught the new state record wiper (a hybrid between a white bass and a striped bass) at Newcastle Reservoir around the same time frame.To top it all off, it was Nielson's first wiper and only his second day of fishing at the reservoir west of Cedar City.According to fisheries biologist Mike Hadley, Nielson caught trout on his first day of fishing at Newcastle, but came away without a wiper. He returned the second day after getting information from a local angler and promptly lost a big fish because the drag was set to tight on his reel. The second one did not get away and its 11-pounds, 2-ounces was five ounces heavier than the previous wiper record caught at Willard Bay.The sterile hybrids we put in Newcastle in 2005 in an effort to control illegally introduced golden shiners. Few shiners can be found in the reservoir these days and a trophy wiper fishery now also exists at Newcastle. Rainbow trout stocked in the reservoir are growing at a much faster rate without the competition from the shiners.