Oldest known Great Lakes trout found, dubbed ‘Grandma Mary Catherine’

The oldest known trout in the Great Lakes was found, and she has a name: Mary Catherine.

Or “Grandma Mary Catherine” for the young’uns.

Grandma Mary Catherine was collected for research purposes in September 2023 from the cold waters of the Klondike Reef in Lake Superior, about 40 miles north of Grand Marais near the Canadian border, according to a release from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

An age assessment has since found that she was roughly 62 years old at the time – a whopping 20 years older than the last record holder in Lake Superior and more than 30 years older than a typical Lake Superior trout’s lifespan.

“When Grandma Mary Catherine hatched, the U.S. president was John F. Kennedy and Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go into outer space,” DNR fisheries rese