by David Strege
A British man hooked the biggest fish of his life—a fish said to probably be the most well-known catfish in England—and then needed an extra pair of hands to drag it onto shore after his son managed to get the behemoth into the net.
Rodney Hills, his son, and a fellow fisherman from their group lifted the massive wels catfish onto the shore of Oakwood Lake in Norfolk, U.K., and weighed it with a digital scale hanging from a tri-pod. The fish went a whopping 114 pounds, 11 ounces.
“It was hard work getting it in,” Hills, 67, told the Bucks Free Press. “It was quite a struggle.”
It took Hills 30 minutes to reel the fish to shore on 40-pound-test braided line. His son Adrian, using the biggest catfish net on the market, netted the massive wels catfish and immediately recognized the obvious.
“Once we had got it in the net, Adrian said to me you better go and wake someone else up, as we are going to have trouble getting this out of the water,” Hills told the Bucks Free Press.
Hills summoned another member of their fishing party from a nearby tent. The 10 fishermen from the Catfish Conservation Group spent the night camped out on the shoreline, fortunately allowing for additional help.
While they were weighing and photographing the fish, they noticed a distinguishing mark near its dorsal fin. It was a circular scar made famous in the U.K. by a DVD called “UK Monsters” filmed by Mick Brown, who had caught the same catfish and nicknamed it The Duke, since that is Brown’s moniker.
And as Brown did before him, Hills released the fish so it can fight again.
Hills informed GrindTV Outdoor in an email that the biggest fish he ever landed previously was a 33-pound carp. He also indicated that this wels catfish he caught and released has good taste.
The bait it fell for was a chunk of Matteson’s Smoked Pork Sausage.
Photos courtesy of Rodney Hills.
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