Thursday, November 04, 1999
Fisherman reels in record catfish
BY LEW MOORES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CROSBY TOWNSHIP — Who knows how long it had lived its life of relative leisure in the lake? Where it grew fat and sassy, perhaps dining on a menu of shad and trout and bluegill, skulking in a place where there were no floods, no currents, where it didn't need to stay lean and mean to survive.
Neal Ramsey guesses the big guy had been in the lake for several years. At least judging by its weight and its girth.
“It was just fat,” Mr. Ramsey said of the blue catfish pulled from Miami Whitewater Forest Lake on Oct. 24.
The fish weighed 66 pounds, the largest catfish ever caught at any of the lakes managed by the Hamilton County Park District, where Mr. Ramsey is assistant manager of boating and fishing, and just about nine pounds shy of the record for all of Ohio.
Steve Brewster caught him, gently brought the big guy in close enough to net. His fishing buddy, Scott Raisor, helped with the net.
“I don't know how to describe it,” Mr. Brewster recalled as he hooked the fish. “He was in and out and all around and under the boat. They pretty much do what they want to do and you just hang on to 'em. ...
“I got cold chills running up and down my arms right now just thinking about it. The adrenalin, the heart rate, the emotions, you know. I had all kinds of feelings.”
Mr. Brewster, 38, of Harrison, has religiously fished the lakes of the park district in search of the lakes' big monsters — catfish — for the past two or three years.
So great is his affinity for catfishing that he and a friend traveled in March to Cumberland River in Tennessee and hired the services of a catfishing guide, Jim Moyer, to show them the finer points of catfishing — where to look, what underwater structures they prefer.
Mr. Brewster was using live bluegill on a 25-pound test line when he hooked this catfish near the middle of the lake. He fought it for about 20 minutes, finally netted it, laid it in the bottom of the boat and rushed in to shore and the boathouse.
Mr. Ramsey, an expert angler himself, was at the boathouse.
“It was a beautiful fish,” said Mr. Ramsey. “That thing didn't have a scar on it any place. No hook scars. A big fish like that will often tear a hook off the corner of its mouth. But it was just as clean as can be.”
The catfish was weighed, photographed and released. Its length was about 52 inches, its girth about 37 inches. Mr. Brewster had no intention of keeping the fish.
“I would have liked having him around a little longer,” said Mr. Brewster, “but I don't like keeping 'em out of water that long. I just didn't want to hurt him. He's not ugly. Only a mother could love a face like that, though.”
The catfish is probably not the largest at the lake, Mr. Ramsey maintains. There are at least four Big Buds — so-named because they are tagged and anglers catching them rewarded — including one released in 1992 that already weighed in at 55 pounds.
That catfish could easily be 75-80 pounds, said Mr. Ramsey. The one Mr. Brewster hooked was not tagged and was probably released when it was only 20 or so pounds.
“They got everything they need in that lake,” Mr. Ramsey said of all the catfish. River fish have a tougher time, with currents, flooding, competition for food. “They really have to work for their food. Now, this guy has got a pretty easy life. He can just grow big.”
Mr. Brewster let the fish go and watched it slip beneath the lake surface.
“I don't know if anybody'll ever catch him again,” Mr. Brewster said. “But I'd like to see him again.”
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