Thought you guys might enjoy this. I haven’t caught anything over 20# at Lewis & Clark but obviously I haven’t been fishing right!
Whopper of a catfish caught at Lewis and Clark Reservoir
BY MARJIE DUCEY
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Gerald Mestl isn’t telling.
Gerald Mestl with the 108-pound blue catfish his group netted at Lewis and Clark Reservoir.A 108-pound, 511/4-inch blue catfish is lurking in Lewis and Clark Reservoir, but the Missouri River program manager for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission’s fisheries division won’t say where.
“I’m not going to give you a close location,” he said with a chuckle.
The whopper of a fish would surpass the Nebraska state record by nearly 71/2 pounds had it been caught with a hook and line. Mestl’s crew of four caught the blue cat in a 600-foot gill net while beginning a study of paddlefish above the dam a few weeks ago.
“We were pretty excited,” he said. “We had handled some awfully big paddlefish. The biggest one the day before was 74 pounds. We really didn’t notice right away until we got it up to the surface. Then it kind of caught our attention.”
He said it took just a few minutes to weigh and measure the fish before they released it back in the water. The fish is probably at least in its 20s, but the age can’t be verified without removing a spine, one of the flipper-like objects near the fish’s mouth. Mestl said they don’t like to do that to bigger fish because it leaves too large of a wound.
Mestl doesn’t expect a rush to the lake to catch the monster fish, but he said it should be a good topic of conversation in bait shops and cafes in the area for a few days.
Anybody who wants to give it a try should be prepared, Mestl said, because of the wind and potential waves on the big lake.
“It’s almost 30 miles long and a couple of miles wide,” he said.
Daryl Bauer, the lakes and reservoirs program manager for the Game and Parks Commission, said it would take 60- to 80-pound test line with some freshly caught live bait to nab it.
The fish would need to be weighed on a certified scale with one Game and Parks employee present to be certified as a state record. A biologist would have to verify the species. The closest office to call would be in Norfolk (402-370-3374).
Mestl said an 80-pound flathead catfish below the dam by St. Helena had been the biggest fish he’d caught on the job. He said the big ones are a thrill.
“That’s part of why a biologist does what he does,” he said. “Just seeing the occasional big fish like that is exciting.”
