Cecil would you mind telling me who that biologist was? Jed Pearson told me he remembered the photo of the fish hanging in the forestry office when he worked down at Greene Sullivan where the fish was caught, but he was not there to witness the actual fish.
He did provide the name of the biologist who he thought might have identified it, but this person moved out of state many years ago and I have not been able to locate them.
I saw the photos before the taxi got to work on the fish....which by the way was Archie Phelps down in Alabama....and from someone who raises HBG, I could find no evidence of GSF. I daresay I have probably researched this particular fish more thoroughly than any sane person ever would...to the point that I pored over maps and records in the forestry office for hours, in order to determine the age of the BOW the fish came from, the stocking records for that particular BOW, and whether or not the pit that produced the fish had ever been restocked, or drained and re-mined.
The last time I saw it, the mount itself was hanging on the wall behind the bar in Sparky's Doghouse, in Mt.Summit. It's been repainted at least once over the last 40 years.
By the way...if you talk to Jed, ask him if he remembers talking to the persistent guy who was researching what it takes to produce giant Bluegill in his own ponds, and figured researching the state record might shed a little light on the subject. I haven't talked to him in a couple of years, but he was very helpful and I appreciated that.
