Virginia Man Obliterates State Minnow Record And It’s Way Bigger Than You’d Think

A man holding a fish
DWR Virginia

Check out the size of this guy’s chub (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

A Virginia man recently hauled in the biggest little fish in state history last week while trout fishing in the Cowpasture River.

Common throughout rivers, ponds, and streams, fallfish are a species of chub and the largest minnow in the eastern U.S.

A full-grown adult fallfish typically measures around 5 inches, but the new state record was measured to be a remarkable 19.75 inches long.

And girthy too…

The 3.5 lb minnow didn’t just break the state record, it smashed it.

“The chub measured nearly 20 inches and shattered the old record by 13 ounces.”

In an interview with Field & Stream, the new record holder Jerry Hall indicated he is a longtime angler who practices catch-and-release but he knew this big chub might be something special so he kept the fish.

“I know what a 3-pound fish looks and feels like. I thought I’d seen that the state record fallfish was a bit over 2 pounds. I knew this fish was well over 3 pounds. So I brought it out on the notion that it was a state record.”

And he wasn’t wrong.

Department of Wildlife Resources Region 4 Fisheries Manager Steve Reeser certified the weight, giving him the new state record.

“It’s an extraordinarily large fallfish. I’ve fished a lot in my life and I’ve never caught one close to it before. It set the bar high, but I think that record can be beaten.”

Just an absolutely massive chub (I can’t stop)… big congrats to that guy.

If you’re interested in trying to catch big chubs, the first step is buying your fishing license.

And as always, fish responsibly… save the whiskey for the dock.

A beer bottle on a dock

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