Tyler Harmon was fishing the Ohio River last month when hooked a once-in-a-lifetime catfish. Harmon landed the fish after a 20-minute fight, and it was certified as the new state record the following day. Now, he’s waiting to see if he’ll win a $20,000 grand prize from the tackle company that made the rod he was using when he caught it.
Harmon caught the fish during a spur-of-the-moment trip with his dad and 4-year-old son near their hometown of Ravenswood, West Virginia. The trio had just eased their 18-foot aluminum jon boat out into the Ohio when one of their catfish rods doubled over.
“We were just hoping to catch a small catfish for my boy to reel in,” Harmon told Jackson County, West Virginia’s 13 News. “When we got it in the boat, [Walker] turned to my dad and said, ‘Papa, that’s a big fish!’”
Harmon tried hard to keep the giant cat from breaking him off on the anchor line and some underwater brush near the boat during the intense 20-minute fight. “Whenever it surfaced the first time, my boy saw it and started flipping out thinking it was a shark,” he said.
Finally, Harmon fought the fish to the side of the boat, and his dad netted it. Then they worked together to pull the massive blue cat aboard.
Harmon said he knew right away that it was a state-record contender. It weighed in at more than 70 pounds on the boat, but the scale Harmon had that evening wasn’t IGFA certified.
Back at the boat ramp around midnight, Harmon put the massive catfish into a stock tank filled with river water. He kept it alive overnight and had it certified at a local bait shop the following day. Its official weight came in at 72.75 pounds, and it measured 48.15-inches long with a 33.5-inch girth. It easily outweighed the previous record—a 71 pounder caught by Micheal Ramey on the same stretch of river back in May.
Because Harmon was using a HellCat fishing rod made by Catch the Fever when he netted the record fish, he’s now eligible for a whopping $20,000 in prize money. It’s part of a promotion the company runs for anglers who use their gear to catch record-breaking fish.
“We are still doing our due diligence and gathering the paperwork to make it official,” the company wrote in an August 31 Facebook post. “But as everything sits right now, Tyler’s fish qualifies for the full $20,000 Catch The Fever state record payout. Best part: that fish was released alive and swam off strong. A record in the books and a giant still out there swimming. That is exactly how it should end.”
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