The morning of August 28th started slow on a guided catfishing trip for Michael Maxwell and his 15-year-old son William. They were fishing with veteran catfish guide Brandon Brown of “Brown’s Guide Service” on 15,000-acre Lake Arrowhead near Wichita Falls, Texas.
“We started at 7 a.m. and caught a few small blue catfish,” Brown explained to Wired2fish. “But they weren’t eating well, so we moved to another spot – a river channel edge in about 18 feet of water.
“About 8 a.m. William hooked something that just wouldn’t move. There’s wood all around that area, and I thought for sure his line was hung up with that light spinning outfit and little 1000-series Shimano Sedona reel.”
But the line started to move, and the anglers realized the snag was a heavyweight fish.
A video of the catch shows William – a high school football player – with a lightweight spinning rod bowed double. He muscles the fish as best he can, and the small 1000 size spinning reel is buzzing occasionally as the fish takes 30-pound test braided line.
“The cat hit a thumbnail size ‘Mr. Whiskers’ punch bait soaked on bottom with a number 6 treble hook,” said Brandon, age 46, who’s guided catfish anglers on the lake for 16 years. “I use 4X strong Mustad hooks, thank goodness, or that big cat could have straightened the hooks and William may have lost it.”
But the hooks held, and William got the fish near the boat where Brandon hauled the massive catfish up and over his boat gunnel and onto the deck.
“William did a great job fighting that huge flathead catfish,” said the guide. “It’s unusual, because most cats we catch are blues. There are some flatheads around, but most caught are blue cats – and some of those are big too – like the 65-pound blue cat one client caught with me last year in Arrowhead.”
They knew William’s massive catfish was a possible lake record, so they kept the fish alive in the water and phoned Texas Parks and Wildlife and reported the big cat.
“We met some Texas fisheries folks at Arrowhead State Park, where they weighed the flathead at 65.6 pounds with a 51-inch length,” said Brown. “William’s fish was 20 pounds heavier than the previous record flathead from Arrowhead.”
The prior lake record weighed 45.72 pounds, caught by Alton Bynum in 2009.
William will get a plaque or certificate from the state verifying his record fish.
After the record flathead catfish was weighed and verified by Texas fisheries staff, Brown and the Maxwells went back to catfishing.
“They ended the day with four gallon bags of catfish fillets to take home,” said Brown. “I think they caught about 25 fish to clean and eat. Really, it was kind of a slow day. It’s common to catch 50 to 60 catfish from Arrowhead, with lots of ‘em weighing 3 to 5 pounds.
“We keep no catfish heavier than 10 pounds, because there are plenty of smaller ones for the skillet.”
