Posted on 08/20/2008 9:47:49 AM PDT by Cecily
A Wilkes County fisherman caught a record channel catfish -- with his granddaughter's hot pink Barbie doll rod and reel.
David Hayes landed the fish, which weighed 21 pounds, one ounce, on Aug. 5 in a private pond in the northwestern North Carolina county. He was fishing with his granddaughter Alyssa, 3, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission said.
The fish was 2 inches longer than Alyssa's rod and reel, which measured 2 and a half feet.
Hayes and his granddaughter were using black crickets as bait and fishing for bluegill when nature called for Alyssa.
"After catching two or three bluegill, Alyssa turns to me and says 'Papa, I've got to go to the bathroom. Hold my fishing rod,'" Hayes recalled, according to a news release issued by the Wildlife Resources Commission. "A few minutes later, the float went under and I saw the water start boiling up. I knew right then that I had my hands full with that fishing rod."
It took Hayes 25 minutes to land the fish.
(Excerpt) Read more at charlotteobserver.com ...
21 Lbs? Throw it back it’s not grown up yet.
A better picture would be her holding the fish. It’s huge.
I’ve never seen anything so big and fat. The fish is pretty large too....
Ummm....Catfish, hushpuppies, and cheese grits. I’m in heaven.
Surprised me too, I’m from Louisiana and that’s nothing but these channel catfish obviously aren’t flathead’s.
Fishermen across the South will be rushing to Toys R Us........
He might have been concerned about the fish stabbing her with one of its pectoral fins—the `barbels’.
A small channel really got me once in the webbing between my thumb and index finger.
Must be a state record. There have been channel cats caught weighing over 50 lbs.
Princess fishing with her Papa ping lol
Proof once again that it ‘aint the rod, it ‘aint the line, it aint the angler .... it’s the bait.
ROFL. Thank you for my laugh of the day.
I think we’re gonna need a bigger...rod
...and by the look on Grandpa’s face, that thing should be weighing in at about 85 or 90 pounds...
The bruisers in NC are the blue catfish and the flathead catfish. Channel’s run kind of smallish here. They are nasty to eat to. I like the blues and flatheads.
Pretty kitty ping
Pretty kitty ping
Alongside the fairway of the first hole at one of the golf course I used to frequent there was a pond with a willow tree growing parallel to the water surface. Along the trunk of the tree, over the watewr were little turtles lined up, and in the water below the tree trunk was a very big catfish, waiting, just waiting, for his ‘turtle soup’. The only reason I know that was a catfish is because one evening I took rod and reel down there to catch it ... and all my bass lures were ignored (I thought initially that it was a big bass), but the lump of my ham sandwich got an immediate response even though it was attached to one of the treble hooks on a bass lure! I put the monster back in the pond after enjoying the catch, and that big boy can probably still be seen cruising that smallish pond.
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