New state document confirmed for Channel Catfish

RALEIGH — The N.C. Wildlife Assets Fee has licensed a brand new channel catfish state document. On Could 21, 2023, Justin Corridor of Reidsville reeled in a 27 lb. 7 oz. channel catfish, from an area farm pond close to his dwelling in Rockingham County, breaking the earlier document of 26 lbs. caught within the Neuse River, July 2021.

Corridor has been fishing this pond for years, however not often caught channel catfish from it. Till Could 2023, when his 13-year-old son caught, what he estimates to have been, a 25+ pounder. They returned it to the water, unaware of the document held at the moment. “I advised a pal about my son’s catch, and he advised me it may need been large enough to beat the state document,” mentioned Corridor. Every week later, utilizing bread dough as bait and his Massive Cat Fever Casting Rod and Zebco Massive Cat XT reel, he acquired the record-breaker. “My spouse went right down to the waterline to carry it in with the online – and it bent the online.” The fish measured 36 1/4 inches lengthy and 24 7/8 inches in girth.

To qualify for a N.C. Freshwater Fish State Document, anglers should catch the fish by rod and reel or cane pole. The fish should be weighed on a scale licensed by the N.C. Division of Agriculture and witnessed by not less than one observer. It should be recognized by a fisheries biologist from the Fee and the angler should submit an software with a full, side-view photograph of the fish for document certification.

For anglers who catch a catfish that doesn’t fairly measure as much as this newest record-breakers however nonetheless meet minimal measurement and size necessities, the Fee has catfish classifications for its North Carolina Angler Recognition Program (NCARP). NCARP formally acknowledges anglers who catch trophy-sized freshwater fish that don’t qualify for a state document with a certificates that includes shade reproductions of fish paintings by the late, famend wildlife artist and former Fee fisheries biologist, Duane Raver.

For an inventory of all freshwater fish state data in North Carolina or extra data on the State Document Fish Program, go to the Fee’s State Document Fish program webpage.

In regards to the N.C. Wildlife Assets Fee

Since 1947, the N.C. Wildlife Assets Fee has been devoted to the conservation and sustainability of the state’s fish and wildlife assets by way of analysis, scientific administration, clever use and public enter. The Fee is the state regulatory company accountable for the enforcement of fishing, looking, trapping and boating legal guidelines and gives packages and alternatives for wildlife-related academic, leisure and sporting actions.

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