I called Noah with a fish flopping at my feet next to an old fiberglass spinning rod. It was a rather exceptional one, and also one I wasn't terribly concerned about being out of the water for a little bit. "Dude I just caught a huge brown bullhead. You've gotta see this thing. I'm sending a photo, give it a sec."
"Oh my GOD!"
"Yeah, this thing is f****** monstrous."
And it was. I didn't foresee this, exactly. The spot was one that had given up some small bullheads on previous attempts the year prior, and a few channel catfish the previous visit. But it was a slow pick spot and had been underwhelming on the whole, never producing more than four fish in a session, and never anything large enough to be of note. But I wasn't convinced, there's always something to figure out. When my rod had bent over about ten minutes prior it didn't seem like anything notable. There was about nine minutes of undoing a gnarly tangle, as the fish had picked up an tracked to the side going right into my other line one rod had ten pound mono, the other had fifteen pound braid, so it was a bit gnarly. Then there was sixty seconds of cranking in the fish which had gone right to the bank and came back right along it. It felt like un insubstantial channel catfish so I was neither hard pressed to land it nor all that excited about it. Then I saw it, and my first thought was that it was a decently sized white catfish. Then it rolled and I saw yellow....
"You uh, might have a state record there" said Noah. "Yeahhhhh this is pretty outrageously big, I'm going to check..." I said. "Yeah, the standing record in under five pounds. I think this fish could be six, it's so f****** heavy."
In a few moments I was calling another angling friend at 9:45 at night... this time John Kelly. "Hey, do you have your certified scale handy? I've got a huge bullhead that I think may be a state record and I want to be sure before I keep it." Groggily, John replied "Yeah, I've got it, where are you?" I explained. "Good, I'll be there in twenty minutes" John replied. Then I was calling Garth. "Dude, I've got a huge bullhead. I think she might be a state record, and I really want to keep her alive". Garth is an aquarist, and I figured he'd be able to help me avoid killing this bullhead for the record. Connecticut has two categories, harvest, for which the fish is retained and weighed on a certified scale. Then the specimen may need to be checked out by a biologist to confirm the species identification. The other category, catch and release, is length specific. I wanted that weight record and was sure this fish would crack it, but I also wanted to try to keep her alive. Because this was a bullhead, which are some of the more durable fish there are, this couldn't be too difficult. They're said to be able to survive dissolved oxygen content as low as .1 part per million. Oxygen isn't the only concern though, and that's why I called Garth. After those two calls I had two friends on their way with things I needed to confirm the record. In no time John was there with the scale, and sure enough she went 5.5 pounds. It was settled, I was holding onto her for a little while. Garth would be a little while, and I soaked bait with John while I waited. Another much smaller brown bullhead came to hand, a tiny white cat, then an average channel catfish. It was getting cold, and I made a few water changes in my small bait bucket to keep the fish lively. She was still full of piss and vinegar then. Any time I grabbed her by the mouth she bit the ever loving crap out of me. Bullheads are hard biters, but I was fine with letting her get back at me a little.
Garth arrived just as John left, and we quickly transported the bullhead into a cooler. Her fins were red and she was clearly stressed, but not enough so that I was worried. We lingered a while and Garth fished with me, but the bite was poor by that point. So I drove home the flattest way I could, trying not to slosh my new friend in the back around too much.
The next morning, I got up and took a look. She was swimming around in the cooler, still washed out but fins looking a little better. I rang up Noah again and asked him if he'd like to come up and see her and help me haul the fish to get it weighed. While waiting for him I drove down the road to do a water change to make sure she stayed lively. I then called the closest shop to see if they had a certified scale, and when they didn't double checked the next closest. We rolled into Fishin' Factory III not long later with a cooler. Andrew said he'd had people come in with bullheads before that never made the grade. This one though, she did. And in good time too, Noah fired off a photo of the scale at 5.45 pounds and not soon later she pooped and lost .05. So I had everything I needed to fill the application, and just after getting home I did so. At that point, I felt I needed to name the fish and decided to call her Angela. Angela would be with me for a bit yet, I suspected. As I hit send on the application I recalled a slight debacle a few years prior where a misidentified channel cat was briefly listed as the record. It had been eaten and no biologist got a chance to examine the specimen. Since this beast was a bit out of the ordinary not only in size but subsequently in many identifiable traits, I figured it would need close inspection. sure enough, it wasn't long before I got an email from Mike Bucheane at DEEP asking for more photos of the animal. I took as many clear photos of the fish showing important color and meristic parts: the jaw, the barbels, the anal fin, and the tail. As these photos circulated between the folks at DEEP I got word from Garth that they were confident that it was a brown bullhead, but doing everything possible to be sure. In the meantime I kept Angela's water clean, changing it every few hours while I was awake. Late in the day I got another update from Mike to expect to hear from Andrew Bade, that he would inspect the fish in person. I didn't hear from Andrew until the next morning, but Angela was still swimming strongly at that point and had actually regained her pigmentation. "We didn't realize you were keeping the fish alive!" Andrew told me over the phone. I told him that the monster bullhead was just fine and we made plans to meet where I'd caught her. A couple hours later we were both marveling over the fish as fish nerds do. Andrew Bade is working on smallmouth bass in Connecticut and does a good job of breaking the of-held stereotype anglers have of biologists not actually being all that fishy. He confirmed that my big fish was indeed a brown bullhead, and finally she got to go back where she'd come from.
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| Photo Courtesy Andrew Bade |
There are perhaps more glamourous records to be held, but I'm glad the first state record I actually secured was a native species. And a commandingly large one at that, not just beating the previous record by an ounce or two. I've got my sights set on other fish though, and this one likely won't be the last.
