When I think of squaretails, native squaretails, our royal native trout, I always think back to the monster, circa 1970, being lugged up the hill home on a stringer by a boy of 8 or 10, tail dragging on the pavement, hot summer eve, accompanied by his older brother. It was caught in a local unnamed hilltown impoundment by a lad with the surname Dickinson, which does nothing to give away his town, given that Dickinsons are stitched deep into cultural quilt of virtually every Pioneer Valley hamlet. Yeah, a lot like horse manure, those Dickinsons are everywhere here in the valley and its bucolic hills, alive and dead, as were the native squaretails at one time, even my own, which is sadly no longer the case.

But let’s not digress. The reason I bring up the subject of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) is that a lunker, one nurtured at Bitzer Hatchery in Montague, was caught Saturday at Ashfield Lake, a stone’s throw from the hollow where fourth great-granduncle Asa Sanderson built his tannery during the first decade of the 19^th century, an enterprise swept from the face of the earth, toward Conway, by a December 1878 freshet. Back in the 19^th century, that pond surely held a native 10-pounder or two similar to the hatchery-grown version taken on a Thomas buoyant spoon Saturday by a man whose positive identity is difficult to come by. Rumor has it that the new state-record holder’s name is Peter Herron of Easthampton, but don’t hold me to it.

“I haven’t been able to confirm the name,” said longtime Ashfield Rod & Gun Club officer Russell Williams. “I was told Peter Herron, with two r’s. That’s all I can tell you. Maybe Dave Warren will have his name. He weighed and measured it at Dave’s Pioneer Sporting Center (in Northampton).”

The Pioneer proprietor had nothing to add.

“Sorry, can’t help you,” he said. “The guy’s a customer of mine, does a lot of archery, but his name escapes me, and he took the paperwork with him. He’s responsible for sending it to MassWildlife.”

Can’t let an minor detail like that get in the way of fresh, breaking news, so we’ll go with the rumor and wait for confirmation down the road. If the man lived in our readership, then I’d chase it with a little more determination. I’ll get it. Stay tuned.

The facts we know are that the fish was 26 inches long and weighed 10 pounds even, bettering the previous state-record brookie by 3 pounds, 7 ounces, a good squaretail in its own right.

The fish had been stocked a day earlier by a MassWildlife crew that had picked up its load in Montague. Knowing it was a special load, including some fish that were going to be tagged for prizes by the Ashfield Rod & Gun Club, Bitzer Hatchery Manager John Williams fattened it up with some display-pool breeders, six fish weighing more than four pounds, two brookies and four rainbows. One of the brookies was the big boy.

“We spiced up the load but that one had to be a fluke, one that had escaped our nets in the past,” said Manager Williams. “Most of our big fish are rainbows. This brookie had to be 6 or 8 years old.”

The Ashfield club tagged 10 fish, including some of the big ones. The biggest of the bunch, the one that had escaped the nets of hatchery personnel for a few years, also apparently escaped the tagging crew at the lake’s edge, because it was not wearing a tag. It did not escape the hook, though, in this case a treble-hook attached to a Thomas lure.

So ends the tale of one state-record brookie that had little time to enjoy Huntstown.