Last week, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission announced a new state record for blue catfish. Caught by Justin Hodge earlier this year, the fish tipped scales at an impressive 73.6 pounds. It beat the previous state record by more than 4 pounds.
The massive blue cat measured 48.5 inches long with a 38.75-inch girth, Hodge tells Field & Stream. He caught it on a live, hand-sized bream. “My buddy and I started out the morning [of February 16] fishing a good catfish hole we’d found on the Suwannee River,” he says. “We caught three or four during the early part of the day, probably between 15 and 25 pounds.”
Waiting Out The Storm
When bad weather moved in, Hodge and his fishing buddy headed for shore. “We went home and cleaned what fish we’d caught then waited for the storm to pass us by so we could hit that hole again.”
When they returned, the fish started biting immediately. “We caught two more 15 to 20 pounders right off the rip,” Hodge recalls. “About 45 minutes later, the big reel on the back of the boat with the bait clicker on it took off running.”
Hodge says he flipped the bait clicker off and let the line go tight before setting the hook. “As soon as I set the hook he went to peeling drag,” he says. “I knew it was either a sturgeon or a big catfish.”
Hodge only fought the fish for two or three minutes before it surfaced near the boat, he says. “Once I got it up off the bottom, it was kind of like dead weight,” he says. “It was just rolling on the surface. It wasn’t really fighting anymore at that point.”
Getting the giant into the boat was more eventful than the tail end of the fight, Hodge remembers. “I mashed down on his bottom lip with a pair of plastic lippers, and they broke right in half at the hinge,” he says. “So I just wrapped the leader around my forearm, dragged him up the dog steps, and snatched him up into the boat with my hand in his mouth.”
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Hodge says he fished for a few more hours before taking the blue cat to a certified scale at a nearby hardware store. The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission didn’t crown it as a new state record until May 15, a full three months after Hodge caught it. The previous state record—which weighed 69.5 pounds—came out of the Choctawhatchee River in Washington County, Florida.
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