New State Record Blue Catfish Caught � And Released Eric Fincher of Mount Pleasant with
new state record blue catfish.
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RALEIGH, N.C. (Jan. 2, 2007) � There�s a monster blue catfish out there in Badin Lake.
Eric Fincher of Mount Pleasant knows it, because he caught and released the record-breaking catfish, certified at 89 pounds and four feet, four inches long, in the Stanly and Montgomery counties reservoir.
�I brought him in and pretty much went into shock,� Fincher said. �He was too big for the net, but I told my wife I had to get him in the boat, he was a record setter. And somehow, we did.�
Unable to find certified scales that afternoon, Fincher took the giant blue catfish to his father-in-law�s house, where he made a makeshift holding tank by damming a nearby creek. That was Nov. 25.
On Nov. 27, certified scales were located and Lawrence Dorsey, a fisheries biologist with the Wildlife Resources Commission, was on hand to make things official. Fincher used an Eagle Claw medium rod with an Abu Garcia 6500 reel, fishing a live shiner at 18 feet in a 43-foot depth, on 15-pound test line, while trolling for striped bass.
�The next day, Nov. 28, I took him back to the lake and he swam right off,� Fincher said. �I�m confident he�s still in there and getting bigger.�
The previous record of 85 lbs, caught at Lake Norman, was set in 2004.
http://www.ncwildlife.org/
