New state file confirmed for Channel Catfish

RALEIGH — The N.C. Wildlife Assets Fee has licensed a brand new channel catfish state file. On Could 21, 2023, Justin Corridor of Reidsville reeled in a 27 lb. 7 oz. channel catfish, from a neighborhood farm pond close to his residence in Rockingham County, breaking the earlier file 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 file held at the moment. “I instructed a pal about my son’s catch, and he instructed me it may need been large enough to beat the state file,” stated Corridor. Per week later, utilizing bread dough as bait and his Huge Cat Fever Casting Rod and Zebco Huge Cat XT reel, he obtained the record-breaker. “My spouse went right down to the waterline to carry it in with the web – and it bent the web.” The fish measured 36 1/4 inches lengthy and 24 7/8 inches in girth.

To qualify for a N.C. Freshwater Fish State File, 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 no 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 file 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 file with a certificates that includes colour 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 information in North Carolina or extra info on the State File Fish Program, go to the Fee’s State File Fish program webpage.

Concerning 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 means of analysis, scientific administration, smart use and public enter. The Fee is the state regulatory company accountable for the enforcement of fishing, searching, trapping and boating legal guidelines and gives packages and alternatives for wildlife-related academic, leisure and sporting actions.

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