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My buddy Andrew Partin (actually my college roommate) and I caught this flathead Sunday morning at 3 am. It was the only fish we caught all night, but it was MASSIVE!!!! We caught it on the upper Cape Fear River above Buckhorn Dam. We caught it on a limbline armed with 100 pound test line and a 7/0 circle hook baited with fresh cut bream. By the way the sycamore branch was bouncing, we thought we might have a 20 or 25 pounder...easily our biggest catfish ever. When that sucker hit the bottom of our little johnboat, we had a 51 pound catfish. It wasn't until 7 that morning that we calmed down enough to fall asleep in our tent. It measured 45 inches long with a 31 inch girth. We tried to get it weighed at 4 different tackle shops, but no one had scales big enough. It bottomed out 50 pound scales. We have never caught anything approaching the size of that fish, and several people were commenting that it was the biggest fish they had ever seen, so we thought we might have a record contender, but one deer scale and several bathroom scales later, we arrived at the 51 pound final weight. The holy grail of catfishing!!! The amazing thing about it was that both of our previous best catfish weighed 8 pounds and 11 pounds respectively. One fillet was 14 pounds each, easily beating our previous best catfish. Here are 5 pics that hopefully do the catfish justice. In my mind, the fish of a lifetime.
