Dylan Kampnich and his 4-year-old son Kaden, were catching bullheads from shore using earthworm baits one recent Saturday evening. Kampnich learned there were some big channel catfish in the tributary marsh of Black River Bay where they were fishing, so he decided to try for some bigger cats, using 20-pound test braided line, a 2-ounce sinker and a healthy earthworm bait. Soon after gearing up for bigger fish, Kampnich hooked and landed a 15-pound, 32-inch channel cat, the biggest he’d ever seen A short while later, the construction worker hooked a much bigger fish that took him almost 10 minutes to haul ashore. The pot-belly catfish was heavy and measured 40 inches in length with a 27-inch girth. It was so big, he wondered if he had just reeled in a New York state record catfish.
The angler had no scale, so he drove to a nearby Walmart where he bought a hand scale to weigh his big cat. It clocked in at nearly 36 pounds — it was a fish Kampnich believed could be a state record. His catch would have to officially top the existing New York channel cat record of 35 pounds, 12 ounces; that fish was also caught in Black River Bay by Bailey Williams in 2022.
Kampnich knew he needed to get his fish to a certified scale, but the Thousand Island Bait Store in Alexandria Bay was closed for the day. He decided to keep the fish alive overnight and transport it to the bait store in an aerated container the next day.
The plan worked out, and on the tackle shop’s certified scales the cat weighed more than 38 pounds!
He later weighed the fish again for officials from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and by then, the official weight was 37 pounds, 9-ounces.
Therefore, Kampnich’s fish is the New York record for channel catfish. Plus, he had the added satisfaction of releasing the big catfish back into Black River Bay.
Kampnich of Dexter, New York, is ecstatic about his record cat, especially landing the fish with his son. Kampnich says Kaden is hooked on fishing now and wants to go at every opportunity.
