This bluegill may have been close to a state record.
An Arizona man and his wife are likely left wondering what could have been with a monster bluegill landed roughly a month ago.
The Havasu News reports Todd McDonald and his wife Sherry were fishing in Thompson Bay when he pulled in a monstrous bluegill that was 16 inches long and estimated to weigh around three pounds. There's just one problem.
"I didn't take that [fish] in or have it weighed or anything like that," McDonald told the paper.
And now some are wondering if the fish could have broken the three-pound, 10.4 ounce Arizona's Colorado River waters record. But without being weighed on certified scales, there is no way anyone will ever know. There was even some confusion if the lunker could possibly be a redear sunfish instead.
"This one, I think, looks like a bluegill, there's no red around the gill," McDonald said.
If it was a redear sunfish, it would still be about two pounds off the record mark.
It's not the first time someone has caught a monster fish of potential record proportions and then not had it weighed on certified scales. It probably won't be the last either. This one will just have to remain the stuff of fishing legend I suppose.
Record or not, who wouldn't want to catch a three pound panfish?
NEXT: THAT'S ONE GIANT WALLEYE SWIMMING AROUND IN AN IOWA LAKE