GREEN RIVER, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming man has food for days after catching a massive, record-setting catfish in the Flaming Gorge Reservoir.
The Rocket-Miner reports Christian Cosby caught the fish weighing more than 28 pounds on June 24. The fish measured 39 inches long, with a girth of 23.25 inches.
Cosby says he thought it might have been a carp, but as it got closer to the shore he realized it was a giant catfish.
“I yelled, “Holy cow it’s a catfish!” Cosby said in a news release from Wyoming Game and Fish. “I thought maybe it was a carp. I pulled it as close as I could get it to the shore in the shallow water. Then I jumped in the water, stuck my hand in his mouth and pulled it onto the shore. I was afraid he was going to jump off the line.”
He and his buddy Brandon Chadwick then took the fish to an unlikely location to weigh it.
“We also took the fish to Staples to get weighed-in and we got a lot of funny looks,” Cosby said, according to a news release from Wyoming Game and Fish. “They made us take the fish outside after about five minutes. They said it was making the store smell. We felt like real hillbillies. Afterwards, I took the catfish home because I plan to eat it!”
Cosby now holds the state’s record for largest channel catfish caught. The previous record fish was caught in 2005 in the same reservoir, by a man from Cosby’s hometown of Rock Springs.
