Lake Havasu – Syndication Server

The International Game Fish Assn. confirmed Friday that it’s reviewing a May 4 catch of a massive redear sunfish as a potential world record.

“You may have seen this fish circulating the Internet in the past few weeks,” the IGFA stated on Facebook. “The IGFA recently received the application from Thomas Farchione for this enormous 2.83-kilogram (6-pound, 4-ounce) redear sunfish.

“This fish would potentially set the IGFA All-Tackle Record for the species and was caught out of the same lake in Arizona (Havasu) as the previous record.”

Lake Havasu is a reservoir on the Colorado River along the Arizona-California border.

Farchione, of Waterford, Wis., used a nightcrawler to entice the slab-like sunfish onto his hook. He was fishing in California Bay in 25 feet of water.

Since then his catch has been described as a pending world record. The IGFA on Friday explained that the approval process is “still under review.”

The current record – 5 pounds, 12 ounces – was set in February 2014 by Hector Brito.

Redear sunfish are native to Gulf states from Texas to Florida, north to Indiana and North Carolina. But their range has been expanded considerably in the U.S., thanks to introductions.

The fish are prized by light-line anglers for their fighting ability and as table fare.

Lake Havasu, home of the world-record redear sunfish, yielded another potential record Tuesday afternoon when Thomas Farchione of Wisconsin reeled in a 6.3-pounder that measured 17 inches with a 20-inch girth.

Farchione used a drop-shotted nightcrawler to catch the huge redear sunfish in 25 feet of water in California Bay, located south of the island and about half a mile north of Copper Canon on the California side of the lake, according to Today’s News-Herald of Lake Havasu City. The lake sits on the Arizona-California border.

The fish was caught around 1:30, and weighed 6.25 when Farchione and his friends used their own scale.

The certified weight was taken at Bass Tackle Master in Lake Havasu City, and it easily surpasses the current world record of 5.8 pounds caught at Lake Havasu by Hector Brito on Feb. 16, 2014 (photo below).

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So Farchone’s catch is a pending world record until confirmed by the International Game Fish Association, the keeper of world records.

Another example of a big one taken at Lake Havasu: Darrian Robinson of Fontana, Calif., caught a near-world-record redear sunfish in 2019 in the main basin of the lake. That one weighed 5.59 pounds.

Also on FTW Outdoors: Rare catch made of 240-pound ‘river monster’ hatched in 1920

So, why are redear sunfish growing so big in Lake Havasu?

The redear sunfish also goes by the name of shellcracker because its favorite food is snails. In 2007, quagga mussels were discovered in Lake Havasu. It’s an invasive and prolific-breeding freshwater mussel that is encased in a shell. The copious amounts of quagga mussels have provided redear perch with an abundant food source.

In turn, the redear sunfish in Lake Havasu have helped put a dent in the quagga mussel population. According to the Arizona Game and Fish Department, redear sunfish have reduced quagga mussel numbers by as much as 25 percent.

And it helps explain why Lake Havasu produces the biggest redear sunfish in the world.

Photos of Thomas Farchione and his fish courtesy of Bass Tackle Master. Photo of current world record courtesy of Arizona Game and Fish Department. Quagga mussel image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

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Tag: Lake Havasu

Massive sunfish catch still a ‘pending’ world record, IGFA says

Lake Havasu yields another redear sunfish of world-record size