A Nebraska angler has shattered the state record for flathead catfish with the catch last Saturday of an 89-pound behemoth he fought for 45 minutes.
But perhaps as noteworthy are the steps Richard Hagen took to ensure that the fish, reeled from the Missouri River late at night, was not killed.
They included storing the massive flathead in an unplugged deep freezer filled with aerated water and – after Hagen failed to find an aquarium interested in housing the fish – trucking the freezer back to the river so he could release his prized catch back into the river.
“He got me wet when he took off,” Hagen, 61, told the York News-Times. “I said, ‘Goodbye and lead a happy life.’ ’’
Two days passed between the time Hagen caught the flathead he named Brutus, while fishing with his brother near Brownsville, and the time he let it go.
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During that period Hagen weighed Brutus on his home scale (88 pounds), found a certified scale at a local business (89 pounds), and contacted the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission so the fish could be inspected. He kept the water-filled freezer in the back of his truck.
On Monday, Daryl Bauer, fisheries outreach program manager for the Game and Parks Commission, blogged that he was skeptical about a potential new record … until he inspected the enormous flathead.
“Looks like our rod & reel state record flathead will now stand at 89 pounds!” Bauer wrote.
As of Friday morning, the record still stood at 80 pounds, for a flathead catfish pulled from Loup Power Canal in 1988. Bauer, however, wrote that he needed time to complete paperwork before making Hagen’s record official.
Bauer told the News-Times that he commended Hagen for releasing the fish after obtaining a weight and capturing images.
“That fuels everyone’s imagination,” Bauer said. “There’s a state record flathead catfish [still] swimming around in there.”
Hagen, who lives in Swanton, used a bluegill as bait and fought the flathead on 50-pound-test monofilament.
Said Matt Seitz, conservation officer for Game and Parks: “That’s the biggest freshwater fish I’ve ever seen up close.”
–Image courtesy of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission