Tyler Harmon wasn’t expecting much action while launching his 18-foot jon boat on the Ohio River August 27.
About 45 minutes later, the 28-year-old was fighting a fish so big his young son thought dad had hooked a shark. Instead, it turned out to be a 72.75-pound blue catfish, breaking West Virginia’s state weight record and potentially netting the married father of two a $20,000 payout.
It all started because nothing much was going on at home.
“It was just kind of a lazy day around the house,” Harmon, of Ravenswood, West Virginia tells Wired2fish. “I asked my boy, ‘Hey, you want to go out on the boat for a little bit?’ He loves going out and fishing.”
Harmon and his son, Walker, drove to the local launch, where he met his dad, Rodney, who had just finished work at a local aluminum facility. Three generations of Harmons hit the water about 7:45 p.m.
“My goal was to catch a little channel cat or a small flathead for my son to reel in,” Tyler said. “And it went the complete opposite.”
He headed for a familiar spot about a mile from the boat ramp and about 40 yards from shore. He had previously located submerged trees and brush there. The water was an estimated 25- to 30-feet deep, and they fanned four rods from the back of the boat.
Using Sucker Meat as Bait
Their bait was a sucker caught earlier and cut into pieces. Tyler rigged a chunk of the sucker on a Carolina-style bottom rig with what he recalls was a 5/0 circle hook. The setup included a 7-foot, 6-inch medium-heavy Hellcat rod made by Catch the Fever, he said.
Before the record catch, they’d already had some action. Another fish had buried itself in the underwater brush and broken Tyler’s line. He had just finished re-tying it when a barge lumbered by. The barge’s wake lifted the boat enough to pull Tyler’s anchor loose, and the Harmons began drifting.
Then Tyler turned toward the rods. One was doubled over. “My dad thought we were hung,” Tyler said. But then they saw the line moving upriver, and Tyler grabbed the rod.
“It just started stripping drag,” he said. “I was like, ‘We’re not stuck on anything. That’s a fish.’”
Tyler has “catfished” for about a decade. but landing one so big was a new experience. Submerged brush was nearby, and the anchor line was still hanging from the bow. The catfish swam around the front of the boat and back three times as Harmon tried to keep the line untangled.
“A lot of guys say blue catfish do a bunch of spinning underwater,” Tyler said. “This one fought more like a flathead. It was just trying to dig and swim back down to the bottom.”
Eventually it surfaced, and young Walker started flipping out because he thought it was a shark. Meanwhile, Rodney grabbed the landing net. The blue was so heavy that it bent the aluminum-handled net, and it took both men to hoist it over the side.
Once the fish hit the deck, Tyler and his father just looked at it in amazement. Tyler had seen photographs of West Virginia’s previous state record blue catfish. He knew the weight to beat was 71 pounds. The fish lying in his boat looked awfully close.
‘We Gotta Get This Thing Weighed.’
“I was like, ‘We gotta get this thing weighed,’” Tyler said.
Tyler started calling anyone he thought might help him reach the state fisheries personnel responsible for certifying records, but it was Friday night and nobody was answering. During the run back to the ramp, they repeatedly scooped river water with a five-gallon bucket and poured it over the big blue to keep it alive. In fact, there was so much water that it began coming through the boat’s drain and into the floorboard.
At the boat ramp, friends began arriving to see the fish while Rodney raced home and returned with a large livestock feeder tank in his truck. They filled it with river water and added an aerator. Tyler then contacted a friend who owns a bait and tackle shop about ten miles away. The shop had a larger holding tank and better aeration system, so that’s where the big blue spent the night.
At 8 a.m. the next day, Harmon reached a West Virginia fisheries official, with access to a certified scale, who met them at the tackle shop. The blue weighed 72.75 pounds, measured 48.15 inches long and had a reported 33.5-inch girth.
The previous West Virginia weight record belonged to Michael Ramey of Poca, who caught a 71-pound, 50.23-inch blue catfish from the Ohio River in Jackson County on May 9, 2026. The state’s separate blue catfish length record remains 51.49 inches, set by Justin Connor on the Kanawha River in 2025.
After the fish was officially weighed and measured, it was returned alive to the river.
A Potential $20,000 Payout
And there’s a potentially lucrative twist to Harmon’s catch.
The North Carolina company that makes Hellcat rods, Catch The Fever, operates a state-record promotion offering substantial awards to anglers who catch qualifying record fish using the company’s rods or apparel. Blue catfish are among the species listed for Hellcat rods.
A company official said Sept. 1 that the $20,000 reward has not yet been officially confirmed.
“We are currently in the process of conducting due diligence to ensure that all requirements have been met for the payout,” said Amanda Hanson, the company’s customer and brand support manager via e-mail. “While it appears that the necessary criteria are being satisfied, we want to ensure that everything is thoroughly verified before making an official announcement.”
Tyler says he originally bought the rod after learning about the promotion.
“I was like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go buy one of these just in case,’” he says, “because you never know.”
After numerous television station and fishing publication interviews, the maintenance technician for a titanium company was still trying to comprehend how a casual evening with father and son turned into a state record.
“I asked my wife last night, ‘Is this a dream, or did this actually happen?’”
