California fisherman catches record breaking catfish in Clear Lake

The catfish measures almost three feet long and weighs almost 30 pounds. It’s 9 cm longer than the previous record breaking catfish.|

The sun had not yet risen on Saturday when Sean Moffett drove out to Clear Lake to spend his morning bass fishing. He didn’t have much luck at first, so he decided to make a change to a new bait. By the end of his solo fishing trip, he would reel in a catfish worthy of a world record.

The catfish, measuring 89 cm from its nose to long end of the tail, weighed almost 30 pounds with a girth of 24.5 inches, reported news station KTVU.

Moffett first thought it was just a large bass fish. In fact, that’s what he was hoping for, he said in an interview with Matt Allen, creator of fishing blog Tactical Bassin.

It took him about 10 minutes to finally bring the massive fish to his boat, for which he had to use a rope to pull the catfish behind him in the water because he didn’t want to kill it.

“It was quite the adrenaline rush first thing in the morning,” Moffett said of his catch.

The current International Game Fish Association all-tackle world record is 80 cm. Moffett has submitted the measurements to the association with the possibility of officially beating that record.

The IGFA will review it based on the type of line Moffett used, as well as other qualifications to make it official.

Watch the video below:

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