Chad Collins caught the 120-pound paddlefish, breaking the previous record by 10 pounds.
An angler in Tennessee reeled in a massive paddlefish during a recent trip to Cherokee Lake. This is just the latest in a string of new fishing records being set this year.
Chad Collins caught the 120-pound paddlefish, breaking the previous record by 10 pounds. The fish has been certified by a state biologist and is officially in the record books.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency wrote about the catch on Facebook, posting, “Take a look at the new state record paddlefish caught by Chad Collins on Cherokee Lake! TWRA Fisheries Biologist John Hammonds certified the behemoth Shovelbill weighing 120 lbs. with a total length of 75.5 inches and a girth of 41.5 inches. Atta boy Chad!”
While many records are usually broken within a pound or two, this fish beat the previous record by about 30 pounds.
Eugene Cronley caught the blue catfish on April 7 during a fishing trip to the Mississippi River near Natchez. The previous rod and reel record for blue catfish in the state was set in 2009 at 95 lbs, according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks.
The state also lists a trophy record blue catfish at 101-pounds being caught in 1997. Cronley’s fish weighs 131 pounds. Cronley’s fish weighs 131 pounds.
Paddlefish (family Polyodontidae) are basal Chondrostean ray-finned fish They have been referred to as “primitive fish” because they have evolved with few morphological changes since the earliest fossil records of the Early Cretaceous, 120 to 125 million years ago.
Polyodontids are almost exclusively North American and Chinese, both extant and in the fossil record.
Paddlefish populations have declined dramatically throughout their historic range as a result of overfishing, pollution, and the encroachment of human development, including the construction of dams that have blocked their seasonal upward migration to ancestral spawning grounds Other detrimental effects include alterations of rivers which have changed natural flows resulting in the loss of spawning habitat and nursery areas
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