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New Mississippi State Record Catfish

Posted on: Dec 09, 2009

Posted in: Lazer Sharp, News From Chris
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Christmas comes early for Joey Pounders, but not easy – as he found out while wrestling the new Mississippi state record Flathead Catfish to the boat single handed reports the local paper

There is nothing yellow about flatheads, except for the tint of their skin. They are fierce fighters that don’t give an inch of line easily. So imagine the predicament Joey Pounders was in Nov. 2 when he had an irate 77-pounder on his line, alone on a 21-foot pontoon boat on the Tenn-Tom Waterway.

Without a net.

Holding the line to keep the fish close, he reached down and took his only option. “When he opened his mouth, I reached in and grabbed him by his lower jaw,” Pounders said. “And, of course he bit down. Flatheads love to bite and he did and he went to shaking and I thought he was going to rip my shoulder out of its socket. “It would have had it kept flopping and turning, but he stopped and I just pulled him up as best I could, got both hands on him and just rolled him in on top of me. It was my only choice. I was laying on the deck of the boat and the catfish was on top of me. Then I just held on, caught my breath and finally slid him in far enough to let him go.”

There was a lot of fish to slide. It was 46.5 inches long with a 33-inch girth. Its official weight of 77 pounds easily beat the previous record of 66 pounds set by Brad Hillhouse in 2005.

He put the fish in a 100-gallon livewell and headed for his brother’s home on the river’s bank.

“When Joey pulled up, to the dock, he said he had a big one,” said Jerry Pounders. “When he lifted the lid of the livewell, I saw that fish and said, ‘Oh my Lord.’” The brothers moved the fish to a 500-gallon tank in Jerry’s yard. The fish lived there for two days.  But the Pounders took care of the fish, never taking it out of a livewell for more than a few seconds.

“We wanted to release the fish back into the river, which we did,” Joey Pounders said. “I took him back down and slid him in and held on until I was sure he was OK. He was because after a couple of seconds he took off for deep water. He’s back in the river.

“I wasn’t fishing where I thought a fish like that would live,” Joey Pounders said. “I got on the water at 2:30 and was waiting on a friend. He was late so I went just across the river to this hole to wait for him.

“It’s an 18-foot hole on a bank where a tree fell into a couple of years ago. It’s not one of our hot spots, just a spot that’s close by.”

Pounders uses 7-foot heavy-action rod, with 50-pound Power Pro braided terminal line. With a three-way swivel, he attaches a two-foot piece of 50-pound Fluorocarbon leader to an Eagle Claw hook and a lighter piece of line to the weight. He nets his own live shad for bait.

Pounders said he had three lines rigged and tossed one upstream of the tree, one downstream and one right in the middle of the tree.

“It’s how we fish all the time, and most of the bites come on the line in the middle of the cover, at least that’s where the big fish always bite,” he said. “This one did, and when I set the hook he ran downriver about 15 yards. It took about 12 or 15 minutes to get him to the boat.”

Congratulations Joey on a great catch. Even better that big fish is back out there to help someone break the record again!

Most of all – I love that Hat!