Man catches fifty pound catfish at local lake

CARROLL COUNTY, Tenn. — A West Tennessee man caught a fish but it’s not just any fish. He said it’s one of the biggest fish he’s ever caught.

It was a fifty pound catfish, and it was definitely a strong one.

“We got here at 6:30. I think I caught him at about 8. We put in about two good hours trying to track him in. That’s what we do,” fisherman Antwain Spears said.

It started out as a Labor Day weekend on the water at Carroll County’s Thousand Acre Lake for Spears and his fishing group, until things got fishy, and they caught a fifty pound catfish.

“My biggest was 41, but that was at the river. This is a lake. Keep in mind, to come here and catch 20, 30, 50 pound cats is not normal,” Spears said, “to get that in here was like a reward.”

Spears said it took about 15 to 20 minutes to get the fish reeled in and out of the water, and the fifty pounder put up a fight.

“He pulls line until he gets ready to come in. It’s not, ‘I got a fish,'” Spears said.

After reeling it in and showing off, he let the fish go.

“That big, I mean you can’t really eat them. We eat the ones that are four or five pounds that we can filet and the meat isn’t thick,” Spears said.

“You don’t take it. I mean, you can take a picture and brag, that way somebody else can catch it,” Spears said.

Spears used blue gill, a live bait, to catch the fish.