A Tennessee man caught a big, belly-sagging perch this month that broke the seven-year-old state perch record by a full ounce.
Several days ago Trent McCoy of Crossville, Tennessee, hooked into what he initially thought was a snag. That is, until he realized that that snag was actually a fish. In fact it turned out to be a fish that would challenge the existing state perch record.
The fish measure 15.5 inches in length and weighed a hefty 2 pounds, 3 ounces. McCoy's wife told him to take the fish to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to have the perch's weight and length recorded. There, Region III Rivers and Streams Manager Travis Scott weighed and measured the fish and declared it a new state record.
McCoy caught the fish in Lake Dartmoor, just north of his home in Crossville (about 115 miles east of Nashville). He said that he and a friend were fishing in around 35 feet of water when he felt the snag-turned-fish at the end of his 4-pound test line.
The perch beat the old perch record of 2 pounds, 2 ounces, caught by Jackie Kersey of Polk County in Parksville Lake in 2010.
"We're kind of on a run in Tennessee when it comes to record fish," TWRA information manager Doug Markham said. "We have the yellow perch that's been caught that's a little bit over the state record and then we had the tilapia, which is a fun fish. But not just that. Less than a year ago we had a brook trout caught that was a state record, and less than two years ago we had a largemouth bass that I didn't think would ever be broken."
"It's fantastic to see anglers enjoying our natural resources," declared Scott.
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