iStockphoto / marekuliasz/abadonian
An angler in Missouri caught what would have been a state record blue catfish had he not released it. But the massive blue catfish didn’t go back into the water before he took photos and videos of the gargantuan fish.
Angler Jesse Lance was fishing on the Missouri River near Kansas City on October 25th when he hooked up to the blue catfish which was estimated at over 130-pounds, bigger than my aunt’s Great Dane!
Massive Blue Catfish Could Have Been Missouri State Fishing Record
Jesse Lance spoke with Wired2Fish about his once-in-a-lifetime catch. He said he was fishing in his 17ft AlumaCraft boat and using silver carp as bait.
Nothing was nibbling after 30 minutes at his honey hole so he pulled up lines and moved to a new spot after phoning a friend for advice. He told W2F the second spot was a sandy bottom with fallen trees for cover. Once there, he dropped his sonar in the water and marked an absolutely massive fish on the screen.
In just 4 to 6 feet of water, he had a reel spooled up with 80-pound braided line, a 150-pound mono leader, and a 10/0 circle hook with the silver carp bait. It wasn’t long until the tiny submarine gobbled up his bait and bolted for the middle of the Missouri River.
After hooking up with the massive blue catfish, he only had to battle it for about 10 minutes before getting it boatside. But he quickly realized there was no shot in heck he would be able to use a net to get the massive Missouri catfish into the boat and he would need to think on his feet.
Jesse Lance told Wired2Fish “I had one hand on my fishing rod, the other holding the net, and I needed both hands to get the fish because it wouldn’t fit inside the net. I put on a glove, set my fishing rod down and used both hands to grab the catfish by its mouth.”
A risky maneuver!
I’ve tried that with trophy snook in the past here in Florida and lost the fish as they went bananas when I laid hands on them and I have lost at least one fishing rod/reel combo in that process. But for him, it worked. And he was able to show off his incredible catch before releasing the would-be Missouri state fishing record for blue catfish back into the river:
The current Missouri state fishing record holder for blue catfish is angler Greg Bernal of Florissant, MO who caught his 130 pound, 0oz blue catfish back on July 20, 2010 while fishing on the Missouri River. That record will remain after Jesse Lance released his back into the water.
Jesse himself weighs 230 pounds and stands 5’9″, saying the fish looked bigger than him. He said it weighed 126 pounds “with the fish partly on the deck” so estimated it was over 130 pounds for sure if they were able to get it to a certified scale. Alas, he released it and that fish is back out there able to make bigger fish to keep the Missouri River healthy.