This blue catfish beat the previous Fort Gibson Lake record by a whopping 8 pounds.
Bernie McBryde of Wagoner, Oklahoma, recently smashed the blue catfish lake record when he hauled in an 82.7 pound behemoth from Fort Gibson Lake.
McBryde was jug fishing with a friend when he wrestled the big cat into his boat.
Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation officials were there to help McBryde weigh and measure his giant catfish. They also took the photograph of McBryde (above) and posted it the department's Facebook page.
After taking the photo, McBryde released the fish back into the lake.
"The best part was watching it swim away," he said. "They dropped at the boat ramp, it broke (their) scale wire and landed on the pavement. I was so thankful for the good Lord to bless me today. Been after him a long time, and really happy he swam off to the deep. Fish on."
The photo also earned McBryde a couple dozen congratulatory comments, including a few suggesting that he should have kept the big blue.
"People, I would have loved to catch this fish on a rod and reel," McBryde replied. "But the good Lord blessed me with him on a jug with my best friend by my side. Wouldn't change it for the world. I turned it back for somebody else to be blessed like me. Get the net, bro."
Jug fishing is a method of fishing that uses baited lines suspended from floating jugs secured with heavy weights to keep the jug's location fixed. Generally, the angler sets out several jugs at sunset and checks them the following morning. It's a fishing method that's more common in southern states than in the north.
The current Oklahoma state-record blue catfish is a 98-pound monster caught out of Lake Texoma by Billy Nabors in 2004.
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