Posted on 12/02/2016 8:47:10 PM PST by nickcarraway
It was hook, line and sinker — literally — for a man who went out fishing over Thanksgiving.
Equipped with only a small rod, Wilmington, North Carolina, resident Riahn Brewington struggled as he tried to pull out a fish from Cape Fear River last week.
He caught a catfish, but not just any catfish: a giant catfish that weighed more than 112 pounds.
The bloated fish was bigger than the top half of Brewington’s body.
Brewington couldn’t believe his eyes, and neither could his friends when the fisherman posted his prized catch on Facebook.
“Holy Catfish!!!” one Facebook user exclaimed.
“Is this real life??” another asked.
The North Carolina man assured them that the fish was all too real. It was obvious to many that the fish was a clear candidate for a state record holder, but unfortunately the fish fell a few pounds short.
According to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the record holder for biggest catfish is a blue catfish, weighing in at 117 pounds, 8 ounces, caught on June 11.
But Brewington doesn’t consider the catch a loss. He released the massive creature in hopes of catching a bigger version of him again someday.
“This was huge and Riahn Brewington released him to fight again,” said friend and fellow fisherman Dean Hall, who witnessed Brewington’s epic catch in person.
Catfish only live about 25 years, this fish being handled out of water the way it was will probably not survive after being released. This fish probably was near the end of his life cycle.
Exactly. Take your pic and release that old coot. Completely inedible and unmountable. Let it live.
When do we get to throw rice at them?
Hey JENNIFER EARL .....it’s what supposed to happen when you go fishing....her editor is a moron too
That is a blue cat, they are not muddy and quite good eating even at that size if cleaned properly.
Dang that is huge. He caught the loch ness monster.
They are perfectly edible at that size, I know for a fact.
with a adequate food supply and relatively undisturbed waters & and sequestered breeding grounds bottom feeders such as catfish can grow to a ginormous size .
If you’re going kosher catfish ain’t it.
“At the base of some of the earth dams in Lake James they get 6’ to 7’ long.
“
You can catch them that big off the Milwaukee breakwall. But don’t eat them! They feed off the sewage plant!
Blue cats are not exclusively bottom feeders, they are also predators just like the flathead catfish.
Maybe a giant blue channel cat from the bottom of a Lousiana spillway is edible, but not a California lake bottom leviathan. We caught a 39 pounder out of Lake Perris CA and it was 100% mud.
Just me talking here, but farm raised catfish is about all that’s edible.
By the way, Lake Perris has catfish in there that’ll snap your pole off at the reel. It was like pulling a sliding glass door off the bottom of the lake. Was sure we were snagged until the line moved. That monster had a half dozen broken hooks embedded in its lip, some of which had completely healed over. Sounds like a BS fish tale but a cat that size is only uncommon.
Kerr Lake also has catfish about that size.
Hahah yeah, catfish ain’t Kosher.
Thank HaShem that Yellowtail Tuna is.
Glad they clarified that right off the bat - I’m sure most people would have thought it was while driving.
My grand-dad and great uncle built a cabin on the newly formed Lake of the Ozarks on the Osage River in Missouri in the 1930s. When I was a boy I saw many photos in my grandmother’s collection of my grand-dad next to a tree outside that cabin that I knew later in the 1950s. Nailed to that tree would be a fish nailed through the jaw. The fish would be longer than my five foot four grand-dad next to him in the picture. 150 pounds a number of times.
The Osage held “spoonbill” fresh water sturgeon that we would snag on trot lines that were often 50 pounds.
You can’t get me to eat any farm raised catfish, give me a lake or river blue or flathead anytime. Check out my profile page.
Boudreaux was out in the bayou fishing the other day. But he was fishing the old-fashioned Cajun way, with sticks of dynamite. About the time he was getting ready to light his third stick of dynamite, Thibodeaux, the Game Warden came up in his boat. “Dammit it, Boudreaux, how many times I gots to told you, you can’t use dynamite to fish. It’s against de law !”
Boudreaux proceeds to light the fuse, and calmly handing the lit dynamite to Warden Thibodeaux, asks him, “Mais told me, Thib, we gonna talk all day, or we gonna fish ?”
My mother’s family let catfish swim for a day or two in a cattle trough before cleaning. Their stock pond was pretty dirty.
Of course, then they had to catch it again.
I’ve caught plenty of catfish that if not properly fixed, would have that muddy taste. The best thing to do is to soak your fillets in buttermilk overnight. I’ve read it helps pull the oils out of the fillet that gives them that muddy taste. I’ve done this many times and they have always turned out well.
CGato
Hahah thats a great profile page!
Our big one was about the size of that second pic you have where yiure wearing the blue shirt.
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