An 87-pound catfish on 4-pound line

Spiel · June 6, 2009

An 87-pound catfish on 4-pound line

June 5, 2009

When anglers are using 4-pound test, they're usually either trying to finesse a bass, fool a trout or catch a panfish.

They're certainly not expecting to hook into an 87-pound blue catfish.

But that's what happened to Adam Hinkle, a La Mesa angler who caught, weighed and released the big blue Wednesday at Lower Otay Lake.

Hinkle, an avid bass angler, told Lower Otay reservoir keeper Bryan Norris that he, indeed, was fishing for bass when a big blue catfish struck.

Hinkle told Norris he was working a Scrounger jig in Bushlow Cove when his line gave him a sudden jolt. He had 4-pound test line on his spinning reel, so the battle was on.

More than an hour later, Hinkle brought the big catfish up and then took it back to the Lower Otay dock to be weighed.

At 87 pounds and caught on 4-pound test line, the catch shatters the current International Game Fish Association line-class world record for that line-class. The present line-class world record for blue catfish on 4-pound test line is 47 pounds, 9 ounces, a fish caught by Bob Shepherd in January of 2002 on the James River in Virginia. Shepherd also has the 2-pound line-class world record for a 36-pound, 9-ounce blue catfish.

Had he chosen to do it, Hinkle could have applied to the International Game Fish Association for a freshwater line-class, world record. But Hinkle chose not to do that.

“Adam didn't want to pursue the line-class record due to the fact the fish was caught accidentally,” Norris said.

Accidental catch or not, it is one giant fish on some very light line.

Hinkle's catch ranks up there with some of the top blue catfish ever caught in the county. Steve Odomsouk's 113.4-pounder tops the list, caught last year at San Vicente before it closed. Others include Roger Rohrbouck's 101-pounder, also from San Vicente, still a IGFA line-class world record for 12-pound test; and Justin Fools' 99-pound blue catfish, also at San Vicente.