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Now that’s the kind of comment I can appreciate!
That fish has been handled too much to stand as a record. I have a feeling this record will be disputed.
Happens all the time, like the 40 year-old walleye, and smallmouth records, here in Tennessee. The SM record was eventually reinstated, but it took some investigating from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Below is a brief that will be featured in the November 2007 edition of “Tennessee Sportsman” magazine:
State’s Walleye World Record Challenged
The world record walleye, caught more than 40 years ago on Old Hickory Lake, was recently removed from the Fresh Water Hall of Fame records, and replaced with a fish caught in the 1980s.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and International Game Association still recognize the walleye, caught in Old Hickory Lake in 1960 by Mabry Harper, which weighed 25 pounds.
The FWF Hall of Fame used “photometric analysis,” which compares the fish’s size to other items in the picture, and determined the fish could not weigh 25 pounds. FWF officials have replaced the record with a 22-pound, 11-ounce walleye caught in Arkansas in 1982.
This isn’t the first time Tennessee biologists had to defend the world-record title for a fish species. In the 1990s the FWF Hall of Fame and International Game Fish Association challenged the smallmouth bass world record for a fish caught in Dale Hollow in 1955. This record was reestablished after Tennessee biologists asserted there was not enough evidence to disprove the fish’s reported weight.