Grant Martinsen made fly-fishing history Monday on the lower Rogue River, but he didn’t hang around long enough to realize it.

Martinsen, 57, of Grants Pass, hooked and landed a fall chinook salmon that officially weighed 71½ pounds. He then headed to northeastern Oregon on a chukar-hunting trip early Tuesday before his salmon created a big splash in the angling world.

Martinsen’s salmon is more than 8 pounds heavier than the all-time record for fly-casters set 15 years ago on northern Oregon’s Trask River. And once certified by the International Game Fish Association, the salmon and Martinsen will get global publicity and the lower Rogue will become fly-casters’ new salmon mecca.

"He told me there may be some kind of interest in his fish, that it could be big," says Sharon Martinsen, Grant’s wife. "Then he said, ‘Well, I’ll see you later. I’m going hunting.’

"He has no idea," she says. "This gives me goosebumps."

And it’s creating some puffy chests along the lower Rogue, where the river’s faithful fishermen all feel a shared ownership of Martinsen’s fish and its pending fame.

"Man, that thing is so impressive," says Jim Carey, proprietor of Gold Beach’s Rogue Outdoor Store, where Martinsen took his catch. "You would not believe the excitement this thing has generated. We’re as proud of that fish as he could be."

The excitement has stretched all the way to Florida, where the International Game Fish Association already has fielded inquiries about possible fly-fishing records from Oregonians who have caught fish in the 50- to 60-pound range on flies this fall.

But 71½ pounds makes all the rest look like minnows.

"Man, that’s a sweet one all right," says Doug Blodgett, IFGA’s world-record administrator in South Florida. "It sounds like some pretty good salmon runs now in Oregon."

Oregon is amid one of its most storied big-fish seasons in decades, with Southern Oregon streams leading the charge.

Known more for large numbers of salmon than for their individual sizes, the lower Rogue has collected a glut of salmon in the 50- to 60-pound range this year, including a 66-pound fall chinook caught in August by a bank angler casting a spinner.

Biologists attribute the growing chinook to a combination of cutbacks in ocean commercial seasons and excellent feed conditions in the sea.

The drop in commercial harvest creates a better chance for the genetically superior big chinook to escape four or five years of ocean fishing before they head back to freshwater. And those big-fish that do survive are putting on more poundage than ever before.

"We’ve had a lot of big fish this year," Carey says. "After we got that 66-pounder, I guessed out loud that we’d get a 70-pounder, but I didn’t actually believe it. I thought it was too late. And I would have never guessed it would come on a fly."

Most of the big salmon have already run up the Rogue for spawning, so most lower Rogue anglers are heading elsewhere or trolling the estuary for smaller coho salmon.

But Martinsen, a retired biology teacher and football coach, bucked the conventional wisdom.

Fishing alone, he launched his one-man pram at a popular lower Rogue hole called Clay Banks, where he tied a black-and- chartreuse fly onto a 7½ -pound leader — light enough to escape detection in the clear-water conditions.

Martinsen told Carey that, as he waited for his fly to sink after a cast, he felt a bite and a few head-shakes before setting the hook. The fish chugged downstream and the fight was on.

Martinsen eventually won a lengthy but dainty tug-o-war when another angler in a different boat was able to corral the chinook in an oversized net, Carey says.

Martinsen immediately went to shore, plopped the salmon in his pickup and drove to Carey’s seaside store four miles away.

When Martinsen dropped the tailgate in Carey’s parking lot and the salmon’s enormous tail flopped out, Carey heard tires screech along Highway 101.

"I snapped 24 pictures before the guy could ask if he could put the fish down," he says. "People who saw it pulled out their cell phones, and the next thing you know, people were filling my parking lot."

The fish, which measured 48 inches long, was weighed at a certified scale at a nearby store and paraded around town before Martinsen handed the fish to Carey, who plans to have it mounted and displayed in his store.

"He was like a big kid, really proud," Carey says of Martinsen. "But I think it was a little overwhelming. We kind of took over telling his story for him."

As for Martinsen’s take on his success? Well, he’s a bit shy, son Travis Martinsen says, and he’s really unavailable for comment.

Grant Martinsen drove straight from the parade back to Grants Pass late Monday, then traded his fly rod for a shotgun before heading to the Snake River for some chukar hunting — without disclosing exactly where he was going.

"He’s happy, obviously, that he caught a big fish, but he’s a little embarrassed," says Travis Martinsen, of Portland. "He wouldn’t even tell me what kind of fly he used."

While Martinsen is a no-show, the salmon has garnered celebrity status.

It’s been whisked away to an undisclosed freezer in an effort to separate it from adoring fans.

"Everybody wants to see it and get a picture of it," Carey says. "I’m still fighting the temptation to get my picture taken with it."

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com