A fish tale to remembe

A fish tale to remember

Posted: Wednesday, April 3, 2013 10:28 am

While it may not technically be one for the record books, a 10-year-old Milton boy’s catch on the Rock River could have been close.

Brayden Kline was fishing for walleyes near Blackhawk Island with his father, Jason Kline, on Friday when together they landed a flathead catfish that bottomed out a 50-pound scale and stretched 54 inches long.

The current state record flathead catfish was caught on the Mississippi River by Stan Hagensick of Lynxville, Wis. on March 30, 2001, according to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) records. That catfish measured 53 inches long and weighed in at 74 pounds 5 ounces.

Jason Kline said around 5 p.m. on Friday, one of their fishing rods was hit hard and almost fell out of the rod holder on the boat. He grabbed the rod and handed it over to his son, not realizing the size of the fish that was at the other end of the line.

Brayden Kline spent about 15 minutes trying to reel in the catfish, eventually getting it alongside the boat. He was tuckered out, Jason Kline said, who took over for a few moments and soon learned they had a monster lurking below.

“Once I saw the fish, I realized the net was going to be no use, so I handed the rod back to my son and he fought the fish up close to the boat within reach of my hands,” Kline wrote in an email to the Milton Courier. “I grabbed the fish by the mouth and pulled it into the boat. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

He took a measurement using a Stanley tape measure in the bottom of the boat, Kline said. Knowing his scale maxed out at 25 pounds, he began asking fishermen in other nearby boats if they had one available. A digital 50-pound scale flat-lined and read “ERROR MAX WEIGHT EXCEEDED.”

Kline said he caught a 50-inch catfish in 2010 that weighed in the low-60 pound range. He speculated Friday’s catch was at least in the upper-60s.

Kline tried to contact a local DNR conservation warden, but was unable to reach him to verify the potential record. He deliberated what to do for about an hour before deciding to let it go.

“Eventually we said ‘what the heck’ and we released her to be caught again another day,” Kline wrote.

On Monday, conservation warden Boyd Richter of the DNR’s Janesville Service Center said without confirming the weight or seeing how the length was measured, there wasn’t a way to verify if the catfish was a record-breaker.

Regardless, he said it was an impressive catch for a 10-year-old boy.

“It’s a good story, but no way to verify anything in it other than he’s got a picture of the fish,” Richter said. “It’s obviously a nice size flathead catfish.”

By releasing the fish, other fishermen now have a chance to catch the monster. According to the DNR website, anybody who thinks they’ve caught a record fish should follow a few steps:

• Don’t clean or freeze the fish.
• Keep the fish cool, preferably on ice.
• Have the fish weighed as soon as possible on a certified scale, usually found in grocery stores, hardware stores or at a meat processor. The weighing must be witnessed by an observer.
• Contact the nearest DNR office to have the fish species positively identified.
• Complete a “record fish application,” which is available on the DNR’s website, dnr.wi.gov.