Justin Hodge of Old Town, Florida is an old hand at fishing his beloved Suwannee River, where he grew up fishing cats with his dad and grandpa. The 27-year-old pole-barn welder knew the river has some giant blue cats, but he’d had trouble catching the really big ones until last February 15th.
“I love fish that pull hard, and those big blue cats are just my kind of fish – like the big ol’ sharks I get here in Florida,” Hodge tells Wired2fish. “I got into some big cats fishing the Suwannee on the day before I caught my record fish last February. But I broke off five cats that I couldn’t keep from tangling in deep hole river snags.”
Hodge knew he had to regroup and re-rig his fishing gear for the Suwannee’s big cats. So he dug out his shark fishing gear prepping for the following day on the river.
“I got a heavy spinning rod with a big Penn reel loaded with 100-pound test braided line,” he said. “I made a 6-foot leader from 500-pound test monofilament line that I set up using heavy-duty wire crimps I use for sharks.”
The following morning on Feb. 15th Hodge and his pal Wyatt Allen went fishing for cats. They caught several smaller fish that morning, then they came off the river for a time when it rained. After the storm they headed back out, soaking cut bluegills for bait in deep river holes.
“We were in a 48-foot hole with swift current when I got a take on a rod and I set the hook,” said Hodge. “I worked on that fish hard, like a shark fight, and had it at the boat in five minutes.”
When they saw how huge the catfish was they were stunned.
“It was too big for our net – so I just wrapped that 500-pound leader around my hand, grabbed its gill plate with my other hand, and flung it into my boat.” Hodge explained.
The anglers fished for awhile and caught a couple more smaller cats, while the big one Hodge boated laid on their johnboat deck.
“I was thinking that catfish was pretty heavy,” Hodge recalled. “I lift and load 50-pound corn sacks with one hand. But I needed two hands to haul that catfish in my boat. That’s when I decided we ought to get it weighed to see how heavy it was.”
Confirmation
They contacted Florida’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission (FWC), and met state biologist Allen Martin behind a Hardy’s in Old Town, Florida. Martin positively identified the fish as a blue cat, and measured its length at 48.5-inches with a 36.75-inch girth on the tailgate of a pickup truck.
Then they traveled to the nearby town of Chiefland to the Chiefland Hardware and Farm Supply store. There the big cat was put in a wheeled cart, pushed into the store and weighed on certified scales at 73.6-pounds. That topped the old state record blue cat record of 69.5-pounds, taken from Washington County’s Choctawhatchee River in 2015 by Bill Stewart
All required paperwork was submitted to FWC last winter, and the state has just confirmed that Hodge’s fish is the new state record for blue catfish.
The anglers cleaned the catfish and ate it after it was officially weighed and measured. Hodge is having a replica mount made of his record fish by a taxidermist in Pompano Beach, Florida that will be displayed in his home.
“I know there are even bigger catfish in the Suwannee, and I’m gonna catch one,” Hodge says convincingly. “I guarantee you there’s an 80-pounder swimming somewhere there, and I’m gonna get it.”
