Monster Catfish! 130 Pounds

New Missouri Record Probably A World Record


May 1804

A 55-foot keelboat and two smaller pirogues begin making their way up the Missouri River. On the larger craft, a single man among dozens stands out. He is tugging at a line pulled taut in the current. After a short battle, he slides a 10-pound catfish from the river to the boat.

“Nice kitty,” he says, as he lifts the beauty for the others to see. The fish is the color of pearls, unblemished. It gives a guttural purr as a smiling Silas Goodrich strokes its side.

“So you’ve caught another one, Private Goodrich?” calls a figure in the keelboat.

“Yes, Captain Clark,” the man replies. “And a fine one it is. Not the giant I was hoping for, but he put up a good fight.”

Goodrich is a member of the Corps of Discovery headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. They are here to explore the Missouri River at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson. And during the 28 months ahead, the crew often will dine on the bounty of catfish caught by Private Goodrich.

Returning to their camp near the Missouri's confluence with the Mississippi, one of the expedition leaders noted, “We were a little surprised at the apparent size of a catfish which the men had caught in our absence, although we had previously been accustomed to seeing 30-60 pound weights.”

That fish, a blue catfish, had these measurements:

• Length: 51.25 inches
• Width between the eyes: 13 inches
• Circumference around the head just above the first fins: 45 inches
• Weight: a whopping 130 pounds

Meriwether Lewis said he reliably heard of some catfish here weighing 175 to 200 pounds. But the 130-pounder is one of the biggest officially documented from the river for more than two centuries.

July 20, 2010

At 9:00 p.m., Greg Bernal of Florissant, Mo. and Janet Momphard from St. Charles launch a boat at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area in north St. Louis County, Mo. and begin an evening of catfishing near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. A silver carp makes a suicide leap into the boat as they’re motoring to their fishing spot. Bernal, knowing catfish relish carp flesh, cuts the fish into chunks he uses to bait their hooks.

A storm is approaching, and for safety’s sake, Bernal and Momphard decide they’ll stop fishing by 1:00 a.m. before it hits. But 15 minutes before the appointed deadline, Bernal‘s line tightens.

“There was no movement at first,” he says. “I didn’t even know it was a fish. He was hung up on the bottom.”

The fish soon works its way out, and the struggle between man and beast begins. Bernal finds the battle difficult. “But I had my footing on him,” he says.

Fifteen minutes pass before Bernal can pull the monster fish alongside the boat. It is then he and Momphard realize Bernal has hooked a behemoth.

“He’s got his almost 80-pounder on the wall, and I’m like, that’s much bigger,” Momphard said. “We lift a 125-pound generator all the time, and when we went to lift that thing up, I said this thing weighs close to the generator.”

They struggle for half an hour before finally sliding the huge blue catfish into the johnboat. It’s the biggest fish either of them has ever seen.


The next morning, they take their catch to the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC’s) regional office in St. Charles. There, fisheries biologist Sarah Peper sets out to weigh and measure the fish. The blue cat is taken to a local feed store, which has the nearest state-certified weighing scale.

“When the weigh master started pushing the sliding weights up the scale, he got past 100 pounds and just kept going,” Peper remembers. “When the scale finally balanced out at 130 pounds, we were in shock. It was amazing.”

Official stats on Bernal’s blue cat:

• Length: 57 inches
• Girth: 45 inches
• Weight: 130 pounds

Fisheries biologists estimate the fish’s age at 20 to 30 years.

The monster cat far outweighs the previous Missouri state record, a 103-pounder, also from the Missouri River, landed in 1991. Peper certifies Bernal’s catch as the new Missouri state-record blue catfish caught on pole and line.

The lunker also bests the 124-pound standing world-record blue cat. That fish, landed by Alton, Ill. angler Tim Pruitt in May 2005, was caught not far away in the Mississippi River near Alton. Peper completes the world-record application for Bernal to have notarized and submit to the International Game Fish Association, the organization responsible for declaring the fish’s official status.

“The fact that this fish, and the standing world-record blue catfish, were both caught near the same area goes to show the kind of world-class fishing we have in Missouri,” Peper notes. But to Bernal, it comes down to something more visceral.

“It’s an adrenaline rush,” he says. “Man, you hit a big fish down there, and he just starts rippin’ drag off ... It’s like, oh my gosh!”

Since 1992, when the MDC banned commercial catfishing on the Missouri, the river and its tributaries have produced several blue cats exceeding 100 pounds. As a result, experts tout the Missouri River in the Show-Me State as one of the country’s top hotspots for trophy-class blues.

While Bernal’s huge fish is indeed impressive—one of the biggest catfish documented in the Missouri River since the 130-pounder caught on the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804—there’s a good chance even bigger catfish await anglers who fish the area near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi.

Nineteenth-century documents indicate blue cats weighing 150 to 200 pounds were then fairly common in our nation’s big rivers. And in a historical note recorded by William Heckman (1950) in Steamboating Sixty-Five Years on Missouri’s Rivers, we find this note: “Of interest to fisherman is the fact that the largest known fish ever caught in the Missouri River was taken just below Portland, Missouri. This fish, caught in 1866, was a blue channel cat [a blue catfish] and weighed 315 lb. It provided the biggest sensation of those days all through Chamois and Morrison Bottoms. Another ‘fish sensation’ was brought in about 1868 when two men, Sholten and New, brought into Hermann, Missouri, a blue channel cat that tipped the scales at 242 lb.”

Sooner or later, some savvy, strong catfishing fan in the right place at the right time with the right tackle will hook and land a blue catfish much heavier than Bernal’s 130-pounder. And those in-the-know would not be surprised if it happens in the Missouri or Mississippi rivers in Missouri where fishermen like Silas Goodrich and Greg Bernal have been catching giant catfish for more than 200 years.

Swamp Bassin'

The little lake lies in the back of beyond, in the middle of a vast tract of swampland, several miles from the nearest town. Few people fish there.

Getting there isn’t easy. You must motor more than an hour from the nearest ramp, then walk 100 yards through wet, snake-infested woods. When you’re finally there, though, you’ll find an old cypress johnboat. No one knows who owns it any more, but ownership is not an issue in this lonely corner of the world. The boat is there for whoever comes along.

When last I fished there, I emptied the boat of water, then placed inside it my rod and reel, a sculling paddle and a small tacklebox holding a few lures. A spinnerbait was the first lure I cast, and as soon as it touched down by a big cypress, a bass nailed it. I wasn’t prepared. The fish shot away and did a loop-de-loop around a cypress knee. It mattered not that a 225-pound man held the end of the line opposite the bass. The fish, a 6- or 7-pounder, jumped, flipped its tail and was gone.

Bass in these backcountry waters are brawlers. They fight dirty and make their relatives in bigger, man-made lakes look like wimps.

Maybe it’s the extraordinary fertility of these bottomland hardwood swamps that make bass so healthy and strong. Every fish here seems to have extra stamina.

Maybe the confined living space, shallow water and dense cover are what make swamp bass so good at line-busting and throwing hooks. These fish know every inch of their territory and use that familiarity to discomfit their human antagonists.


Maybe it’s the beauty of swamps that causes these problems. When you’re fishing in the shade of 500-year-old cypresses, watching bright-yellow warblers flit through the foliage overhead, the serenity of it all can lull you into a state of total relaxation. Reflexes get sluggish, and consequently, lots of bass get the best of you.

It doesn’t matter, really. Swamp lakes serve up exceptionally good bass fishing, and if bottomland bass get the jump on us more often than usual, it’s a small price to pay for the privilege of being there.

I missed the first bass that day but caught several others. I landed one largemouth a tad over 6 pounds and several more 2- to 5-pounders. The lack of fishing pressure lets bass grow large in that remote swamp lake, and I’ve rarely fished there without taking at least one big bucketmouth.

I grew up in Arkansas’ Mississippi River Delta and cut my teeth on this brand of swamp fishing. Nowadays, I often fish man-made impoundments, too, but I still prefer fishing a small oxbow in the middle of a swamp. The bassing is extraordinary, and I value these waters for their beauty and serenity, too. There’s nothing prettier than sunrise on a backwater lake ringed by cypresses. And you’re never bothered by jet skis, fast-running boats or other distractions. When I get a bellyful of the modern world, I pack my tackle and head for the bottoms because I know I’ll find peace and quiet there.

Swamp Country
By definition, a swamp is a wetland featuring permanent inundation of large land areas by shallow bodies of water. Most swamps are associated with adjacent rivers or lakes. And unlike marshes, swamps include many woody plants such as cypress trees, tupelos, overcup oaks and button willows. The waters of a swamp are still or slow-moving, and often rich in tannins from decaying vegetation.


My home state of Arkansas encompasses some of the biggest swamps in the country, including the Big Woods area stretching along the White and Cache rivers, which includes hundreds of thousands of acres punctuated with scores of oxbow lakes, bayous and backwaters full of largemouth bass.

Swamps occur throughout much of our country, from New Jersey and Indiana to Texas and Florida. Many are protected as national wildlife refuges or wildlife management areas, such as Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia and Florida, Honey Island Swamp in Louisiana and Mingo Swamp in Missouri. Most serve up excellent fishing for largemouth bass. A call to your state fisheries agency should help you find a swamp you can explore and fish on your own.

Equipment and Techniques
Bank fishing and wading rarely are options in these densely vegetated, soft-bottomed waters. You need a boat to access prime bassing spots, and the lighter the boat, the better. You often must carry your craft to the water and finagle your way into and through tight cover. I prefer fishing from a 10- or 12-foot aluminum johnboat, but canoes work well, too. I’ve even fished out of rubber rafts and belly boats on occasion.


Brushy fishing conditions dictate using a rod slightly shorter than you probably use elsewhere; 5-1/2 feet is generally best. Use small tacklebox with maybe a dozen spinnerbaits, an assortment of plastic worms, and a couple of shallow-running crankbaits and topwater lures. If you can drive close to the bank, you may want to haul a trolling motor. If not, take a sculling paddle instead.

Start by working shoreline cover carefully, probing every nook in the brush and every likely log or cypress tree. Change lures and presentations until you find one bass like, starting the day with topwaters and spinnerbaits, then changing to bottom-bouncers like worms and crankbaits as the day progresses. If you’re fishing an oxbow, remember the outside bend of the lake is always a little deeper than the inside bend. This is important in summer when water temperatures sometimes reach the 90s. During midday, bass gather on the lake’s deeper side, lying in shadows of logs and cypress trees where conditions are more comfortable.

Cypress Fishing
Speaking of cypress trees, fishing around these tall swamp lovers often is the best way to nab a swamp bass. The wide, fluted base supports the tree in the wet soil. The spike-like knees are part of the root system, with each extensive system interlocking with those of other trees, forming mats of shallow roots and knees that reinforce one aother.


Think of the root system as a big raised doughnut surrounding the tree. The doughnut’s hole is a pocket of slightly deeper water adjacent the buttress. Moving outward, one encounters the doughnut itself, which extends 10 to 20 feet, sometimes more, away from the tree. Beyond the doughnut, one encounters flat, featureless bottom, unless another tree is nearby and the root systems interlock.

Cypress knees are part of the doughnut and may be the only surface feature indicating the doughnut’s breadth. But the doughnut may extend several feet beyond visible knees, providing underwater bass structure.

The biggest mistake most anglers make is fishing only the water nearest each tree—inside the doughnut hole. A well-placed cast here may entice a bass, no doubt. But don’t confine your fishing to this area. Bass often relate to underwater features on portions of the root system farther from the buttress—a knee with a hollow, for example, or a cluster of knees or perhaps a point of root growth extending toward deeper water. Bass also hold along the doughnut’s outer edges.

To fish a root system thoroughly, begin on one side of the tree, casting close to it for starters, then working progressively outward to cover the entire doughnut, particularly irregular features you can see or “feel.” When you’ve fished thoroughly from this angle, reposition your boat on the opposite side and do the same thing.

Button Willow Bass
Button willows are woody shrubs, 3 to 8 feet tall, growing in dense thickets in the shallows of many swamps. Bass often ambush prey from the interior of these thickets, and if you target these fish properly, you can hook some hawgs.


To catch button-willow bass, grab limbs and pull your boat into the thicket. This requires a narrow johnboat or canoe. Position it near a stump, log or other feature.

Casting is impossible, so use a long, heavy jigging pole with heavy line (30- to 50-pound braid) to bring fish quickly into the boat. Weedless lures such as plastic worms are best. Pull the lure is tight against the rod tip, then work the pole carefully through the brush until you can drop the lure into an opening.

When a fish strikes, set the hook and back the fish into the boat. You’ll lose many fish and lures before getting the hang of it. But be patient and you’ll soon learn to land a high percentage of big button-willow bass.

Conclusion
Fishing swamps isn’t for everyone. Bottomland anglers must contend with hordes of mosquitoes, the occasional cottonmouth or alligator, and stifling heat and humidity. When you need some peace and quiet, however, and the tug of a big bass on your line to make you happy, these wetland jewels are always worth a visit.

Frog Men

So you have a hankering for a mess of fresh fried frog legs, huh? And considering the high price of frog legs in the grocery, you figure you’ll go out at night, prowl the swamps and bayous, and capture some bullfrogs yourself.

Well, if you don’t mind the feel of frog slime and swamp ooze between your digits, if the drone of a million skeeters fighting over the tender cuts of your body doesn’t drive you bonkers, if you don’t mind wandering around when the only other creatures operating are bats and cottonmouths, then maybe, just maybe, a witching hour safari for bullfrogs could be your ticket to happiness. Then again, you ought to read this before you decide.

Setting the Scene

From a bayou’s bank, a male bullfrog’s basso-profundo call echoes out. Brrr-rum. Brrr-rum. Brr-rum. The amphibian’s throat swells like a yellow balloon.

Near the far shore, a man squats in the bow of a johnboat. Pinpointing the sound, he shines a spotlight along the stream. When the light reflects two glowing, eyes, he motions to his partner who begins quietly rowing. The frog sits motionless, mesmerized by the light. When boat draws near, the front man lunges forward and seizes the bullfrog with his bare hands before it can leap away. The long-legged amphibian is admired in the light and added to a growing assemblage of his kinfolks in a wet tow-sack.

This scenario plays out thousands of times each summer. Frog hunting isn’t hugely popular, but it has special appeal to a hard-boiled corps of frog men (and some women) who sneer at darkness and discomfort for a chance at one of nature’s greatest delicacies—fresh frog legs.


This ain’t no sport for sissies. Venomous cottonmouths and man-eating alligators lurk in the darkness, it’s hotter than Hades outside, and when the night is over, there won’t be an inch of your skeeter-drilled hide that’s not drenched in mud, blood and sweat. Like a friend of mine says: “Only idiots go frog hunting. Real dumb idiots.”

Fine Eating, Great Fun

The creature the frogging fraternity finds so appealing is the bullfrog. This largest of North American frogs reaches a foot in length and may weigh more than a pound. Its mild-flavored hind legs are gourmet eating, and when you lay into a mess of delicious frog legs, the heat, mosquitoes, mud and snakes really don’t seem like much to endure.

On one of our many frogging excursions, my friend Lewis Peeler ran the outboard while I spotlighted the shore. Soon we saw the first frog’s glowing eyes. Lew swung us shoreward, idled the motor and positioned me in front of the bullfrog. I thought I heard the big croaker chuckle as the boat ground to a halt 10 feet away.

“We should’ve brought a gig,” I said. “My arms aren’t long enough to reach him.” Score: frogs 1, frog men 0.


Froggers use several methods to harvest bullfrogs. Some wade; others use a boat. Many froggers use long-handled, multi-pronged gigs to spear their catch. A few are skilled enough to hook frogs with a fishing fly or snippet of colored cloth dangled in front of the amphibian on a line. Some use bowfishing rigs to arrow the prey. Purists insist the only way to take bullfrogs is with bare hands; it’s more fun that way.

Lew and I are purists, and we’ve learned the approach is critical when hand-catching frogs. If the boat scrapes brush or a paddle groans against the gunwale, it alerts the frog, which will escape regardless of the light in its eyes. A sudden, head-on strike is recommended.

The amphibian’s body provides the best grip, but often as not, the frog jumps at the last second, and the frogger seizes the hopper by one slippery leg. A moment’s hesitation gives the frog the split second needed to escape. The frogger who falters, fails.

We found our second frog at eye level on an embankment. “This one’s mine,” I said, prematurely.


I held the light on the frog, and Lew moved us within grabbing distance. When the hopper and I were eyeball to eyeball, I made the snatch … and missed. The frog jumped over the boat and hit the water with a splash.

Lew stifled a laugh. “I guess I’ll have to show you how to catch ‘em,” he said. We have an unwritten rule that when one frog man misses, the other gets to grab.

We traded places and headed downstream where two booming males called from opposite banks. The boat scraped bottom 30 feet from one huge frog sitting on an open flat. “You hold the light on him and keep the motor idling,” Lewis said. “I’ll slip behind and catch him.”

“That frog’ll be long gone before you ever get close,” I said.

Lew likes a challenge, however, and quickly approached the frog’s blind side. Moving stealthily, he hovered over the frog with hands outstretched. Suddenly, he pounced.

The frog never had a chance. Lew came up grinning with the frog dangling from his hand. “Driver, find me another one,” he said.

The next bullfrog made some unexpected moves. There was barely room to squeeze through the trees to his stream-bank seat. Before Lewis could grab him, a branch scraped the aluminum boat, and the frog jumped—not into the water, but up the bank. Lew caught the frog with a flying tackle.

“That one almost got the best of you,” I said.

“Yeah, but it was fun;” he laughed. “And you’ve got to admit, that was a great catch. Let’s go find another one.”


We took 16 more bullfrogs that night. It was 1:00 a.m. when we finished dressing our catch. Lew put 36 jumbo frog legs in the refrigerator to soak overnight.

The next morning the aroma of breakfast cooking filled the air. Lew’s wife Sherry had prepared a meal fit for a king—succulent frog legs fried golden-brown, cat’s-head biscuits with milk gravy and scrambled eggs.

A meal like that makes every frogging trip worthwhile.

Hot Crappie

When the weather gets hot, crappie fishing gets tough ... unless you know the secrets for summer success.

It was a typical summer day in Arkansas—fiery and humid with only an occasional breeze to bring relief. For several hours, bluegill fishing on the old river-run lake had been outstanding. But now, as the chuck-wills-widows started their evening roundelay, the bream fishing tapered off.

Plop. The bobber twisted and settled. No takers. Move to the next spot. Plop, twist, settle. Wait. Still nothing. We maneuvered our crickets in, over, under, through and around every piece of visible cover, but no amount of wheedling could rouse another strike.

I decided a last-ditch effort for bass was in order. A barn swallow skimmed the water’s surface as I tied the boat to a tall mid-lake snag. I’d seen two men sink a big cedar tree there just a couple of months earlier.

A bait-casting rod was put into play, and for the next 30 minutes, I plied the brushpile with a variety of lures. Nothing. Switching to an ultralight spinning combo, I tied on a tiny chartreuse tube jig, tipped it with a lively minnow and cast near the sunken tree. Maybe the big guys wouldn’t bite, but perhaps I could entice a couple of little ones.

The next half hour was unforgettable. Not for the glorious rose-and-amber sunset that capped the day. Not even for the river otter I saw playing across the lake. On the first cast, I hooked a pound-and-a-half crappie, and there were 20 thrashing in the ice chest within 30 minutes. None was a real “barn door,” but several rated at least a “Wow!”


This fishing trip, and others like it, has convinced me to pursue crappie during summer. Granted, catching these feisty panfish isn’t as easy in summer as during the spring spawn when crappie are concentrated in the shallows. But for the angler who knows where, when and how, the rewards of summer crappie fishing are many.

The first rule of summer crappie fishing is keying in on deeper-water areas outside the normal realm of shallow-water anglers. Despite the fact they’re often moving, that’s where most crappie hang out on a regular basis.

Concentrate your search in the 10- to 25-foot range. The clearer the water, the deeper you should look. Crappie are usually near woody cover along the edges of inundated stream channels, points and turns on weed edges, rock piles rising into well-oxygenated water, man-made fish attractors and other structure-oriented cover.

In waters with plentiful cover, the trick is finding the small percentage of it that holds fish. You may have to work hard to locate a concentration of crappie. Where cover is in short supply, a single sunken treetop may harbor dozens of slabs, but you must find that spot first.


Some deep-water crappie can be found using hit-and-miss tactics like drift-fishing and trolling. But if you want to increase your hooking time and decrease your looking time, buy a good sonar fish-finder. Electronic hardware is essential to find deep-water crappie consistently. Deep water can hide a lot.

For example, it’s one thing to know a river channel zigzags through a long narrow cove. It’s quite another to find a bend, ledge or some other nuance on the channel that will attract a school of crappie. Without sonar, you might never find such an area. But with a serious look at a bottom contour map and a quick check of prominent bottom changes with sonar, you could be catching slabs in minutes.

On lakes that stratify during summer, it’s even easier to narrow down the waters where crappie are found. Stratified lakes have a layer of cool, unoxygenated water on bottom and a layer of hot, oxygen-rich water on top. A layer of fairly cool, oxygen-rich water called the thermocline is sandwiched between the two. Regardless of whether the thermocline is 8 inches thick or 8 feet thick, that’s probably where you’ll find crappie.

The depth of the thermocline varies from lake to lake. To find it, keep an eye on your sonar while moving around the lake, and look for suspended fish. You’ll notice that most are about the same depth. That’s the thermocline. When fishing, start at that depth.


If you don’t have sonar, try drifting or trolling. Rig your poles with minnows and/or different color jigs set at different depths. Then use the wind or your trolling motor to drift over prospective crappie-holding areas. Make large zigzagging sweeps that take you past stump fields, weed edges and other types of cover in fairly deep water.

When you catch a crappie, change your rigs to conform to the fishes’ bait and depth preferences, and toss out a marker buoy to pinpoint the location. Summer crappie are likely to be congregated in a fairly small area, and drifting a few yards either way could mean getting out of the action.

A common mistake is staying in one place too long. In summer, if crappie are present and feeding, they’ll usually let you know right away. Contrary to popular belief, summer is not a period of sluggishness. A high metabolic rate means hot-weather crappie are frequently feeding, and heavy schooling creates competitive group activity. If you aren’t catching fish within 15 minutes, try another spot.

In murky or stained waters, summer crappie may feed during the bright light of midday. But on clear lakes, fishing edges of cover before dawn and after dusk usually brings the best summertime action. To avoid intense sunlight, crappie in transparent waters often shift the majority of their feeding activity to night.


Night fishermen create their own crappie delicatessens by placing strong lights in or over the water. The lights attract hordes of insects, the insects attract baitfish like shad and minnows, and when the baitfish start swarming around, it’s just a matter of time before crappie stop by for a late-night snack.

Almost any light will work. Some anglers hang propane lanterns over the water. Others prefer a 12-volt floating or sinking crappie light that shines through the water. Lights around boat docks, parks and bridges also attract fish.

Remember, you can’t just throw out a crappie light and start hauling them in. You must place your lights near structure and cover where crappie are likely to be feeding. And you must be patient long enough for the light to attract the insects, then the baitfish, then the crappie, a sequence that may take more than an hour. Prime nighttime fishing spots include underwater timbered islands, sunken brush piles near piers and docks, bridges and causeways over deep water, and drop-offs along underwater creek and river channels.

Lightweight, sensitive fishing equipment is a must for light-biting summer crappie. A good ultralight spinning outfit or graphite jigging pole works great, but try to find one with a soft, sensitive tip. This allows you to lift up slightly and watch for the slightest bend in the tip that indicates a fish has taken your bait. Watch your line for a slight twitch or slackening that signals a hit.

If you enjoy panfishing and haven’t fished for crappie during summer, I suggest you give it a try this year. Hot crappie aren’t hard to catch, they’re just a little harder to find. When you’ve zeroed in on a hot-weather slab hideout, likely as not you can stay in one place and catch enough to feed your family—maybe enough to feed the next-door neighbors, too. Summer days are crappie days, despite what you may hear.