From left, Chuck Parker, Jaylynn Parker and Jeff Sams with the state record 101.11 pound Blue Catfish caught from the muddy backwaters of the Ohio River near New Richmond.
Apparently, the stories were true of divers telling tales of monster catfish as big as a man in the murky depths of the Ohio River because one has finally been caught. There is no telling how big the catfish are that live at the bottom of the Ohio River.
On April 7, when the river rose to 50 feet, just 12 inches short of flood stage, the muddy backwaters near New Richmond gave up one of those river monsters to a trio of local catfishermen, (and catfisherwomen) at just the moment the rising river peaked.
“On Saturday evening, just before dark, we set out 17 jug lines and tied them to branches so they wouldn’t float away,” said Chuck Parker of his friend Jeff Sams and his daughter Jaylynn. “The lines were baited with skip jack that we had caught a couple of weeks earlier in Kentucky. The jugs were not untended, but were set so Jeff could watch them from the deck of his camper which sits along the creek”
The next day, Sunday afternoon, Chuck and his 15-year old daughter, Jaylynn, returned to pick up the jugs.
“She loves to check the jugs,” said Jaylynn’s father. “My back was bothering me so I stayed on the shore with my wife and Jeff’s wife watching Jaylynn and Jeff launch the small boat to check the lines. The jugs were only about 40 to 50 yards away in front of Jeffs camper. The first jug Jaylynn checked yielded a 15-lb blue catfish which they released. We knew the second jug had something big because it had pulled the jug under water.”
A tug on the line yielded a strong pull downward and the river monster at the end of the line was not going to come aboard easily.
“Once they realized that fish wasn’t budging, they broke off the limb the string was tied to and rowed to shore with the fish in tow,” recalls Parker. “Once on shore it took both of them to haul the fish to the bank.”
The catfish at the end of the line was a true river monster, a beast of a fish unlike any they had ever seen.
“Once we got it ashore, we knew we had something and searched around for a set of fish scales which we borrowed that only weighed up to 100 pounds,” said Parker. “When we finally hoisted the fish up it bottomed out the scale. We knew then we could possibly have a state record fish.”
Not quite sure what to do next they called Clermont County Wildlife Officer Chase McDonald, who arrived shortly with Adams County Wildlife Officer Gus Kiebel. Minutes later Brown County Officer Micah Collier arrived, and the trio looked over the fish, examined it and measured it’s length and girth. The fish was 56.5 inches long and had a girth of 39.5 inches. They took pictures for identification and sent those pictures to Debbie Walters, Fisheries Supervisor for the Division of Wildlife’s District 5 office in Xenia. Walter identified the catch as a Blue Catfish, the largest of the three catfish species that inhabit Ohio waters.
“Officer Kiebel looked around at our jugs and our set up and said everything was ok and legal,” recalled Parker.
One of the rules for certifying state record fish is the requirement to have the fish weighed on county certified scales. The offices called around but could not find any weight scales open on Sunday that were capable of weighing such a large fish. Although one was within a 20-minute drive, the Bethal Feed, which is where the current state record blue catfish of 96 pounds was weighed, would open on Monday morning.
“Keeping the fish alive to be released was the most important thing to me, even above having a state record,” said Parker.
The fishermen looked around and found a truck bed toolbox they filled with water from the creek which was big enough to hold the fish and transport it. The next morning, after a night the big fish spent in a large bait cage in a pond, he was loaded back into the tool box with fresh water and hauled to Bethel where a small crowd of people had gathered to see this monster catfish. The big blue certified weight was 101.11 pounds, easily beating out the current state record blue catfish at 96 pounds. The next stop was back to the flooded muddy tributary from where it came to return the fish to the river.
Social media posts about the giant fish have gone viral, and all the Cincinnati TV and radio stations have aired interviews, pictures and footage of the released catfish. The record fish application was filled out and New Richmond sophomore Jaylynn Parker was given credit for the catch. It’s now up to the Outdoor Writers of Ohio, the organization solely responsible for keeping track and certifying Ohio’s state record fish, to approve the big blue catfish as Ohio’s newest state record fish, and possibly the largest fish ever caught in Ohio in modern times.
“When we finally released the big catfish, a bald eagle was soaring overhead,” said Parker. “The response has been overwhelming, but some negative things have been said about the catch, so I switched off my daughter’s notifications on her cell phone. But the good part is all the congratulations, well done’s, encouragements and support she has received. She’s 100 percent on Cloud 9 right now.”
