It’s official: A 15-year-old girl who caught a blue catfish weighing 101.11 pounds has become the new Ohio state record holder for this species.
“I started crying,” teen Jaylin Parker told FOX News Digital. “My mom started crying too. We’re so excited.”
“I’m very proud to have done it,” she added.
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“I still don’t fully understand that I’m the state record holder.”
Parker, of New Richmond, caught a blue catfish on April 7 in Twelve Mile Creek, a tributary of the Ohio River.
Jaylin Parker, 15, of New Richmond, Ohio, shows off the blue catfish she caught in the Ohio River on April 7th. The fish weighed over 101 pounds. (Kristen Parker)
The fish was legally caught on pitcher line.
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“He was bigger than we imagined,” Parker, a sophomore at New Richmond High School, told FOX News Digital a week after his capture.
Parker and his family put out a jug of fishing line the night before their big catch around 8 p.m.
Jaylin Parker and her father Chuck Parker pose with the girl’s record-breaking catch. (Kristen Parker)
When I returned the next day, this time with family friend Jeff Sam, lo and behold, the man was on the second line they checked.
“I started pulling him and I noticed he was pulling back pretty hard,” Parker said.
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“I thought, ‘This is a really nice fish.'”
“People think fishing is a guy’s sport and girls can’t do it. But obviously, I just did it because I did it and I could do it better.”
Parker said the fish were surrounded by debris due to the river’s rising waters. She added that the boat almost tipped over while trying to catch the fish with a net.
“The fish pulled hard again and started fighting,” she said.
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“I think the adrenaline was really pumping at that point. I just wanted to get him up because I knew he was a really big fish and I was a little scared that he was going to run away. is.”
Parker gave the fish one good tug, and it rolled to the side.
Parker and his family forgot their fishing scale, so they had to transport their huge catch to a local feed and supply store and record the weight. (Kristen Parker)
“I started screaming, and I was like, ‘Net the fish, net the fish,'” Parker said.
As Fox News Digital previously reported, the river was high that day, so Parker’s parents, Chuck and Kristin Parker, and Sam’s son were able to get the fish to the dock.
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“We all grabbed the net and pulled him up to the pier,” she said.
“They said, ‘This is a really big fish. This could be a state record fish.'”
Mr. Parker wanted to weigh the fish, but realized that the others had forgotten to bring a scale.
No one around them had a scale, so they called the Ohio Division of Wildlife.
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“It was a Sunday, and the game warden came out about an hour later,” Parker said.
“To get certified, we had to have it weighed on an auditor’s scale, and there was nothing open that had an auditor’s scale.”
The record-breaking catch was caught on a pitcher’s fishing line after Parker’s family cast their line at 8pm the night before. Pitch fishing is a method of fishing in lakes and rivers where you catch fish by hanging a line into a pitcher. Tie the fishing line with the hook to the water jug. You can also add weights to the fishing line to keep the jug in place. (St. Petersburg)
The adventure continued until Parker was able to identify a potential state award-winning catfish.
“The game wardens told us: [could] Please bring him to our house,” she said.
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“We have a big tank, so I kept him in there overnight until I went to Bethel Feed and Supply the next morning to weigh him. He was in the food tank all night. , my father would go out there every hour to see what was going on.” He went on some adventures. ”
When the family was finally able to weigh their catch, the scales tipped over 100 pounds.
After catching a monster-sized 101-pound blue catfish, teenager Jaylin Parker officially set an Ohio state record. After her catch tipped over in the water, she, her father, and other anglers were able to catch the fish with a net. (St. Petersburg)
The new record was set by a vote of members attending the Outdoor Writers of Ohio (OWO) annual business meeting held at Shawnee State Park Lodge on April 27, according to a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. Certified.
16 OWO members voted to certify the new record.
The vote was 11-5 in favor of certifying Parker’s catch.
Fox News Digital has requested information from OWO about why the records were placed on the ballot, but has not yet received a response.
After weighing in, Parker was eager to release the fish into his home waters.
“I’ve definitely had people reach out to me saying their daughters want to go fishing with me and that they look up to me.”
After the fish was returned to its natural habitat, Parker said: “It was so great to see him swim away, knowing that we took such good care of him and released him in such good health. I was happy,” he said.
“And I was very happy to know that we were able to keep him alive and release him to a place where we know where he was captured and where he came from.”
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Parker said she received a letter from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine congratulating her on becoming the new state record holder.
She said she wants to be a role model for other girls.
“I’ve definitely had people reach out to me and say their daughters want to go fishing with me and they look up to me,” Parker said.
Teenager Jaylin Parker officially set an Ohio state record on April 7 when she caught a blue catfish weighing more than 101 pounds in Twelve Mile Creek, a tributary of the Ohio River. (Kristen Parker)
“People think fishing is a man’s sport and that girls can’t do it, but of course I did it just because I did it and because I could do it better,” she added. .
The previous record for the largest blue catfish caught in the state was 96 pounds, also caught by Chris Rolfe in the Ohio River in 2009.
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Meanwhile, the world record is a blue catfish that was approximately 57 inches long and weighed 143 pounds, caught in John H. Carbags Island Lake near Clarksville, Virginia.
OWO maintains Ohio’s record fish list in consultation with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division.
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