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One Whopper of a Fish
Jenna Gordon
KTTC TV
ORONOCO, MN — If you are a fisherman, you either have or are waiting for the chance to catch “the fish.”
So big, you are glad you brought a buddy with you to haul it in from the depths of the water.
“All of a sudden my pole came alive. I hooked it and said this is the one.”
The big one.
The fish that every angler dreams about.
“Kept reeling, kept reeling and finally came out and we’d seen it and our mouths just went bump, right to the ground,” say Luke Urevig, “It looked like a little dinosaur.”
But, not a little fish.
Luke Urevig snagged a catfish measuring 50 inches long and approximately 40 pounds in Lake Zumbro.
His friend, Royce Ronningen, helped net the catch.
“I turned around and sure enough his pole was bending pretty good,” says Ronningen.
“The pole I was using doesn’t bend for small fish and it was bending a lot and if I wouldn’t have had Royce there to help me net it, it probably would have taken me a long time, if ever,” says Urevig.
“I didn’t want to break the line as I was netting it. I tried to be as careful as possible. I’d hate to loose his fish,” says Ronningen.
They didn’t lose the fish, though it took more than five minutes to reel the catfish in.
“We’ve fished for 7 years for this fish. We’ve caught a lot of fish but nothing like this,” say Urevig.
The guys caught the monster in a secret place they’ve been fishing for years. They won’t even tell us exactly where it is, but we do know it’s about a mile north of Fisherman’s Inn.
“Secret little spot, zip. We’ve been going there for a long time and we’ve caught some pretty big fish there,” says Urevig.
They catch, but they don’t keep.
“I didn’t have the heart to keep it so I threw it back.”
Back into the depths of Lake Zumbro.
“This is what it’s all about in our eyes.”
And, the two are already eying their next big catch.
“Every single year the fish keep getting bigger and bigger and the stories keep getting better and better so we’re going to keep doing what we do an have fun while we do it,” say Urevig.
The state record for largest catfish caught is 38 pounds and 44 inches set back in 1975.
So the duo, who fish around 3 times per week, plan to go out again tonight to test their luck.
Maybe this time they’ll keep it.
Just like that secret color on Lake Zumbro that Brians says he will never reveal. 
