Joey Baird (pictured right) and friend Mark Conroy (pictured left) with Baird’s 121-pound, 9-ounce blue catfish. (North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission)
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission just confirmed the records of two anglers for record setting catfish.
Joey Baird was out fishing on Lake Gaston July 5th, when he caught a blue catfish measuring a whopping 121 pounds and 9 ounces, 60 ½ inches in length and 40 ½ inches in girth, the NCWRC said in a statement.
The Lawrenceville, Va. resident caught the impressive blue with cut bait. Baird’s blue catfish eclipses the previous state record, a 117-pound, 8-ounce fish caught in June 2016. The current world angling record is a 143-pound monster caught in Virginia’s Buggs Island Lake in 2011.
Tyler Barnes reeled in a massive flathead catfish from the Neuse River on July 20. The Pikeville man’s fish measured 78 pounds and 14 ounces, at 52 inches in length and 37 inches in girth. He used a live sunfish as bait.
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Barnes fish beat a 15-year freshwater fish state record for flathead catfish, the NCWRC said. The record was previously held by a 78-pound flathead hooked in the Cape Fear River in 2005. The world angling record flathead catfish was caught May 14, 1998, from Elk City Reservoir, Kansas, and weighed 123 lb 9 oz