(LibertySociety.com) – The Ohio state record for the largest blue catfish caught in the wild now belongs to a 15-year-old girl. Jaylynn Parker was jug fishing in the Ohio River when she caught the 101-pound catfish. The girl’s mother proudly posted photos on Facebook of her daughter posing with the fish. She thanked her husband, the girl’s father, and his friend Jeff Sams for “always taking her out fishing doing what she loves to do.” Parker told WLWT that “without Jeff and my dad this wouldn’t have been possible,” given that the fish weighed just 16 pounds less than her.
Jug fishing is when a fisherman ties a fishing line to a jug that floats on top of the water and is a popular way of fishing for catfish. Sams said that they usually jug fish when certain areas are flooded, which was the case when Parker caught the record-breaking catfish. Parker said that she was excited to continue fishing and snag an even bigger catfish in the future. After the weigh-in and many photographs, they videoed the release of the fish back into the river. Parker took a celebratory jump into the river afterward.
The 25-year-long Mississippi state record for a blue catfish was broken by Eugene Cronley in 2022 with a catfish weighing 30 pounds more than the previous record holder’s catch. Cronley caught the 131-pound monster in the Mississippi River with a rod and reel. The blue cat could not resist his skipjack herring bait, but it put up a good fight. It took Cronley 40 minutes to land the fish after it was hooked. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries said that fish as big as Cronley’s were rare.
The world record for the largest blue catfish is held by Richard Nicholas Anderson. He caught the 143-pound fish using a rod and reel in Kerr Lake, a reservoir of the Roanoke River in Virginia in 2011.
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