Robert Bailey and his buddy Dwayne “Doodle” Peppers were fishing for catfish early one morning off Peppers’ dock on sprawling 56,000-acre Lake Hartwell. The big reservoir on the Savannah River is located on the Georgia-South Carolina line, northeast of Athens, Georgia.
The two Georgia residents fish together often, specifically targeting catfish – and they’re good at it.
They regularly catch blue and flathead cats off Doddle’s dock, including a massive 53-pound flathead Doodle landed off his dock the same night that Bailey caught a 32-pound blue cat.
The two experienced Hartwell catfish anglers were rigged and ready for battle the morning of Oct. 24.
“We used heavy-duty Mad Katz rod and bait-casting reels, with 30-pound line and 4/0 circle hooks,” Bailey tells Wired2fish. “We used fresh heads-and-guts blueback herring baits we got from Michael Jordan’s ‘The Bait House’ in Hartwell. He has fresh bait, and that’s the best for big cats.”
The anglers had only set out baits for a few minutes before something began pecking at Bailey’s bait. Soon Bailey’s rod jumped, and something big and fast muscled away with his bait, ripping line off the reel and screaming its drag.
“That fish took about half my line on multiple runs,” said Bailey, a 52-year-old former chicken plant employee from the town of Hartwell. “It probably ripped off nearly 200-yards of line. The fight was brutal… lasting at least 30 minutes.”
The battle between Bailey and his catch wove around some brush and cover near the dock. But fortunately no snags tangled his line. For a while Doodle believed Bailey fought a turtle, because the fight lasted so long.
But the long and fast runs of his quarry made Bailey believe it was a big catfish. After several attempts to land the fish, he finally worked it close to Doodle’s dock. The anglers were stunned at the size of the blue cat Bailey had hooked as he led the fish out from underneath the boat dock.
“Doddle grabbed a landing net, and we had a little trouble getting the fish into it head first,” Bailey said. “When we got it on the dock we both stopped and just looked at the fish, amazed at its size.”
After checking with some folks they realized the blue catfish was so large it may be a Lake Hartwell species record. They were advised to take the fish to the Georgia DNR hatchery office in Clarkesville so it could be officially weighed and measured.
They did, and the Hartwell Reservoir record now officially belongs to Bailey, according to the Georgia DNR. His 45.25-inch blue catfish weighed 53.5 pounds, topping the old record caught by Melvin Wall from 2003 by 23 pounds.
“Doodle is a great guy and always gets me out of the house to catfish with him on his dock,” said Bailey. “I’ve fished my whole live, mostly on Hartwell with my dad and grandpa. There’s not much better than catfishing with family and friends.”
