Growing up in South Carolina, I’ve always heard rumors of catfish that are bigger than small children swimming deep within the waters of our local lakes.
Of course, I’ve never seen one of these “dinosaur catfish” for myself, so they’ve always been just old wive’s tales to me…
Until I saw what this 15-year-old kid hauled in at Lake Wateree.
According to The Rock Hill Herald, 15-year-old Rock Hill, South Carolina resident Destin Fox was fishing this past Saturday with his uncle Ryan Williams on Lake Wateree, when the two reeled in one of the biggest catfish I’ve ever seen.
I’m talking about a 94-pound MONSTER blue catfish. The creature was 56 and 1/2 inches long, with a girth measuring 37 inches at its widest point.
Destin was humble about the mind boggling catch, describing it as:
“Huge! It was fun.”
Ryan Williams also told the outlet:
“The mack daddy of catfish. Destin caught it. We are both still in shock of how big it was.”
It took the duo about 30 minutes to get the fish onto the boat, as the net they cast was too small for catfish.
Destin’s other uncle, Anthony Williams, couldn’t contain his excitement for Destin’s catch:
“I’ve been fishing 40 years and never seen any blue cat near as big.”
Chris Sutton, the owner of Sutton’s Landing where the catfish was brought into, added:
“This was the biggest blue catfish we ever saw here. Just massive. Huge.”
The SC Department of Natural Resources does not keep records in certain bodies of water, which includes the Catawba River basin and its lakes, where Lake Wateree is located.
DNR spokesman Stephen Fastenau said the South Carolina state record for blue catfish is 113.8 pounds, so as big as Fox’s monster was, it would fall just a handful of pounds short for the state record.
Nevertheless, it’s still wild to see a catfish this big get pulled out of a South Carolina lake.
Check it out:
