World Record – Page 3 – Syndication Server

Angler lands ‘gigantic’ flathead catfish, shatters 16-year-old record

A South Dakota angler has shattered a 16-year-old state record with the recent catch of a 67-pound, 8-ounce flathead catfish.

Ethan Evink, visiting from Iowa, caught the massive flathead while fishing with cutbait at dawn on the Missouri River in Union County.

According to South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks, Evink’s catch shatters a record (63 pounds, 8 ounces) that had stood since 2006.

The agency announced the new record Thursday, stating on Facebook:

“Ethan Evink of Hospers, Iowa, has set the new state record for flathead catfish at a gigantic 67 pounds 8 ounces!

“This monster came in at 51.5 inches long with a girth of 32.5 inches from the Missouri River in Union County. Ethan caught the flathead catfish at 5 a.m. using cutbait. Congratulations Ethan!”

For the sake of comparison, the all-tackle world record for flathead catfish stands at 123 pounds. That catch occurred at Elk City Reservoir in Kansas in 1998.

–Image showing Ethan Evink with his record flatheaad catfish is courtesy of South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks

Light-tackle angler lands massive ‘freak of nature’ sunfish

Zac Mickle has a knack for catching large redear sunfish at Arizona’s Lake Havasu, but during a recent outing Mickle landed a redear so massive and plump that he described the fish as “a freak of nature.”

Zac Mickle has a knack for catching huge redear sunfish at Arizona’s Lake Havasu, but during a recent outing Mickle landed a redear so massive and plump that he described the fish as “a freak of nature.”

The egg-laden sunfish measured 16-1/4 inches and weighed 5.07 pounds. On Facebook Mickle boasted, “By far the greatest fish I have ever caught.”

The average redear sunfish weighs about a pound, perhaps a tad heavier in some fisheries. Much larger redear sunfish have been caught, but catches exceeding 5 pounds are extremely rare.

Zac Mickle with 5.07-pound sunfish. Photo: Stephanie O’Loughlin

The International Game Fish Assn. lists as the all-tackle world record a 6-pound, 4-ounce redear sunfish caught at Havasu last May. The catch, by Thomas Farchione, is also the Arizona state record.

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Mickle told FTW Outdoors that he was fishing near submerged timber with 4-pound-test line and a piece of nightcrawler as bait when the enormous redear struck.

Zac Mickle’s 5.07-pound redear sunfish atop in ice chest.

“I casted to the timber and let it drop to the bottom,” he recalled. “Seconds later I felt just a couple little taps on my line, which is exactly how these fish hit. You never know if it’s 4 inches or 5 pounds. I set the hook with my ultralight rod and the fish didn’t move. I knew it was big! I just didn’t know how big.

“She stayed deep for a long time not really doing much. With only 4-pound test I couldn’t do much. They usually go for runs but I think she was just so round that she couldn’t do that.

“When I finally started lifting her off bottom I saw that she was giant. I ran to the back of the boat to grab the net and luckily she went right in. This is when I could finally see exactly how big it was and I freaked out!”

Mickle said that while he releases most of the fish he catches, he kept the giant redear sunfish in order to have an exact replica made.

–Images courtesy of Stephanie O’Loughlin

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Fisherman in bass tournament catches record sunfish

Lester Roberts was fishing in a bass tournament on the Satilla River in Georgia when he hooked into what he thought was a good-size bass.

Lester Roberts was fishing with a friend in a bass tournament on the Satilla River in Georgia when he hooked into what he thought was a good-size bass. Instead, it was a king-size redbreast sunfish that turned out to be a Georgia record, and might possibly be a world record.

Roberts used a crankbait to catch the redbreast sunfish that weighed 1 pound, 12.32 ounces, as reported by Georgia Outdoor News.

The old state record was 1 pound, 11 ounces caught in 1998.

The fishermen were casting crankbaits along the banks of the river when the big sunfish hit.

“I cast up in the limbs in the swift current and was bringing my crankbait back out,” Roberts told GON. “That’s when he slammed it.”

Both fishermen thought he’d hooked a nice bass until it broke the surface.

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“I swung him in the boat, and we couldn’t believe just how big he was,” Roberts told GON. “We’d never seen anything like it.”

They put it into the livewell and continued to catch bass. At the dock, a friend weighed the sunfish and the scale read 1 pound, 12 ounces.

“At that point I’m thinking I might have the state-record fish,” Roberts told GON. “Later that afternoon around 5 o’clock, we took the fish to the DNR where it was certified as the new state-record redbreast.”

The Wildlife Resources Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources stated on Facebook that Roberts’ catch could tie the world record, that being a redbreast sunfish weighing 1 pound, 12 ounces caught by Alvin Buchanan in 1984 in Florida’s Suwannee River.

But might it be recognized as a world record? GON reported Roberts’ sunfish as .32 ounces over the current world record. So, stay tuned.

By the way, Roberts and his friend Whitey Hendrix finished second in the bass tournament.

Photos courtesy of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

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Record-shattering catfish caught on Mississippi River

A Mississippi angler has shattered the state record for blue catfish after a 40-minute fight with what he described as “a fish of a lifetime.”

Eugene Cronley, of Brandon, hooked the massive catfish while using skipjack herring as bait on April 7 near Natchez on the Mississippi River.

“We could hardly get him in the boat,” Cronley told the Clarion Ledger. “I was wore out.”

The fish weighed 131 pounds and replaces a 95-pound blue catfish as the state record.

“The fish shattered the previous rod-and-reel record of 95 lbs. caught by Dakota Hinson in 2009, and is larger than the trophy record blue catfish of 101 lbs. caught by the team of Freddie Parker and Brad Smith in 1997,” the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks boasted Monday on Facebook.

Cronley described the catch as “truly a fish of a lifetime.”

Eugene Cronley (right) admires his record catch

For the sake of comparison, the all-tackle world record for blue catfish stands at 143 pounds. That catfish was caught at Virginia’s Kerr Lake in 2011.

Blue catfish are native to the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio River basin systems, and have been introduced elsewhere the U.S.

–Images showing the record catfish are courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks

Catch of ‘primitive’ gar breaks nine-year-old record

A Georgia angler has established a new state record with her catch Saturday of a 31-pound, 2-ounce longnose gar.

Rachel Harrison, of Adairsville, caught the toothy gar on the Coosa River near Rome. The catch breaks a record – 30 pounds, 13 ounces – that had stood since 2013.

“State records do not get broken every day, so join us in congratulating Rachel on her impressive catch,” the Georgia Department of Natural Resources exclaimed Monday on Facebook.

Longnose gar, of the broader gar family, “are considered relics from a large group of primitive fishes,” the DNR’s Wildlife Resources Division explained in a news release.

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The fish inhabit mostly weedy areas in lakes and streams, and prey largely on other fish.

For the sake of comparison, the world record for longnose gar stands at 43 pounds. That fish was caught in the Trinity River in Texas in 2017.

Georgia river yields another record catch; ‘The place to be’

A Georgia angler has reeled a state-record hickory shad from the same river that had produced the previous record.

Timmy Woods of Kite, Ga., was fishing recently on the Ogeechee River when the 2-pound, 10-ounce shad struck. His catch breaks the previous state record, set a year earlier, by four ounces.

“The Ogeechee River is the place to be if you are targeting record hickory shad,” Scott Robinson, Chief of Fisheries for the Georgia DNR’s Wildlife Resources Division, boasted in a news release. “The great news is that there are amazing angling opportunities all over the state and plenty of fish to catch, but who will hold the next record? Don’t let someone else do it.”

The shad caught by Woods was only four ounces shy of the world record – a 2-pound, 14-ounce hickory shad caught in Florida’s Econlockhatchee River in 2008.

Hickory shad, like American shad, are anadromous and spend most of their lives in the Atlantic Ocean. They return to their natal rivers when it’s time to spawn.

They’re found along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. In Georgia, the spawning season typically lasts from January into May.

‘Monster’ catfish reeled through ice during epic Iowa sunset

An Iowa angler who was ice fishing with minnows recently on Lake Manawa was surprised by the “constant power” exhibited by the 34-pound flathead catfish at the end of his line.

An Iowa angler who was ice fishing with minnows recently on Lake Manawa was surprised by the “constant power” exhibited by the massive catfish at the end of his line.

“The fight was unlike anything I’ve ever caught through the ice,” the Council Bluffs resident told Field & Stream. “It was constant power. It was a whole new battle to get that big of a fish to turn its head on a rod and reel that wasn’t meant for something of its size.”

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The flathead catfish, caught during a spectacular sunset on Jan. 31, tipped a scale at 34 pounds before Campbell placed the fish back into the hole and watched it swim free.

He told Outdoor Life: “I only caught one fish that night but it took us the whole night to get it in.”

The catch caught the attention of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which on Wednesday shared the news via Facebook.

“Surprise! That’s no panfish. That’s a 40-inch, 34-pound Iowa Master Angler flathead catfish!” the agency exclaimed. “Gavin Campbell was recently ice fishing Lake Manawa when he pulled this monster from the ice.”

Many of the comments pertained to the beautiful sunset on display in the image captured by Campbell’s friend, Ryan Higginbotham.

Iowa’s Master Angler Program recognizes exceptional catches in state waters.

Campbell told Field & Stream that it was his largest-ever ice-fishing catch.

For the sake of comparison, however, the Iowa state record for flathead catfish stands at 81 pounds. The behemoth was caught at Ellis Lake in 1958.

The all-tackle world record is the 1998 catch of a 123-pound flathead catfish at Elk City Reservoir in Kansas.

Angler makes tournament splash with catch of 106-pound catfish

A South Carolina angler has landed a 106-pound blue catfish to propel his team to victory during a recent tournament at Santee Cooper Lakes.

The catfish was so immense and powerful that it “literally destroyed the extra-large plastic tub used to hold fish before placing them into the stainless steel bin to be officially weighed,” according to the Carolina Sportsman.

Vern Reynolds caught the 106.62-pound blue catfish while teamed with Mike Durham during the Santee Lakes Catfish Club’s inaugural tournament on Jan. 15. The competition involved 20 teams that combined to weigh more than 1,330 pounds of catfish.

Three teams were skunked and seven teams delivered more than 100 pounds of catfish to the scale. All catfish were released after being weighed.

106-pound blue catfish pictured at left. Credit: Santee Lakes Catfish Club

Reynolds’ massive catfish was caught while he and Durham drifted on the lower lake. Their three-fish limit weighed 200.15 pounds.

The Santee Lakes Catfish Club provided this synopsis Jan. 16 via Facebook:

“Man, what a tournament Santee Lakes Catfish Club had yesterday! Some of the best anglers in the country went out and battled some rough, March-like winds in January, and it paid off for a lot of them. We had 7 teams weighing in total weights of 100+ lbs, with the 1st place team coming in with an astonishing 200.1 lbs, including a BRUTE weighing 106.6!”

Few anglers have landed blue catfish topping 100 pounds. The all-tackle world record – a catch made at Virginia’s Kerr Lake in 2011 – stands at 143 pounds.

–Images courtesy of the Santee Lakes Catfish Club

Bass angler in Georgia breaks 45-year-old record

An Alabama man who landed a giant bass recently while fishing in Georgia has broken a state record that had stood for nearly 45 years.

Joseph Matthew McWhorter, who lives in Lanett, Ala., caught the 8-pound, 5-ounce shoal bass Dec. 23 on the Chattahoochee River near Columbus.

The catch beats the previous Georgia record, set in 1977, by two ounces.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources announced the news Monday, proclaiming McWhorter to be “the proud holder of the new state record shoal bass.”

Shoal bass are found in the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint River drainages in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. In Georgia, the species also has been introduced to the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers.

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Shoal bass are designated as the official state riverine sportfish species, according to the Georgia DNR.

“The average adult is between 12–24 inches,” the agency stated on Facebook. “Shoal bass are usually found around current breaks near flowing water. This can be in the middle of a big shoal, in a deep-water bend of the river with large boulders, or on the bank behind a tree in the water.”

For the sake of comparison, the International Game Fish Assn. lists as the world record an 8-pound, 12-ounce shoal bass caught in the Apalachicola River in Florida in 1995.

Anglers busted with 152 crappie over the daily limit

Authorities in Mississippi have busted two anglers in possession of 152 crappie over the limit at Enid Lake.

Apparently, a statewide daily creel limit of 30 crappie was not sufficient for two anglers at Mississippi’s Enid Lake.

Authorities on Thursday announced that after receiving a recent call regarding “suspicious activity” at the lake, an officer encountered two individuals in possession of 152 crappie over the limit.

The bust was carried out by Cpl. Brian Tallent of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks. The unidentified anglers also were charged with game violations.

The DWFP’s Col. Jerry Carter stated in a news release: “We would like to thank the general public for reporting game violations thereby allowing our officers to further protect our state’s wildlife resources. We would also like to thank Cpl. Brian Tallent for his work in this investigation.”

The world record for white crappie – 5 pounds, 3 ounces, by angler Fred Bright – was set at Enid Lake in 1957.