“That was the fight of my life…” This is how Tyler Rutherford describes the fight with the record catfish that he was able to land on his daughter’s pink children’s fishing rod. “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight!” is a well-known English saying. When you’re fighting really strong fish, the tackle should be suitable for the target fish and be robust. Sometimes, however, you don’t expect a monster to bite because you’re after a completely different species of fish. As a result, you may end up with tackle that’s far too light and really bad cards – like the proverbial knife in a gunfight. Most of the time, big bycatches that accidentally bite on tackle that’s far too light are lost during the fight. But with a lot of luck, you can occasionally land a fish…
“The fight of my life”: Angler catches record catfish
“As soon as the fish bit, it went crazy and a monster was on the hook!”, Rutherford described his catch to officials from the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. They had come to inspect the record catfish as a new state record for catfish and to weigh the catch. But how did this strange catch come about? Tyler Rutherford explains: “That afternoon I was fishing for sunfish with my daughter. The three-year-old could already reel in a fish, but couldn’t cast it out without my help. When I set the hook, which was tipped with a bloodworm, a large tail fin hit the water.” What had bitten there was definitely not a sunfish: the 0.20 line raced off the reel and Rutherford took over the rod. “Most of the time I could only build up tension on the fish and hope that the fine brush teeth didn’t rub through the line…”, Tyler sums up the fight with the record catfish. The fight with the children’s fishing rod, which cost only $9.99 together with the reel, was a real test of nerves! And the landing was not easy either: Since the landing net was much too small, Tyler had to improvise. He fought the catfish to the bank, got into the water and landed the fish there.
Incredible luck: This huge catfish was caught on a $9.99 kid’s fishing rod – a new West Virginia state record! In the background is the pink rod, which passed the endurance test surprisingly well.
After DNR officials weighed the catfish, the scales showed an incredible 42 pounds and 200 grams. The catfish was also extremely fat, easily beating the previous record. Rutherford’s catfish is now the new record in the US state of West Virginia.
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