Ben Christensen with his record blue catfish from Texas’ Pedernales River. Photo courtesy of Instagram.
From the “holy smokes!” department, here you go…
Texas fly fisher Ben Christensen convinced a 31.55-pound blue catfish in the Pedernales River to eat an olive damselfly nymph, and after 40 minutes and a couple of backing runs, the fish finally came to hand.
The real kicker? Christensen caught the big fish using a 4-weight Scott Flex—a rod the manufacturer no longer makes, and one that most fly fishers would consider to be much too light to handle such a fish.
“I fought him for 40 minutes like we were offshore or something,” Christensen said in an Instagram post about his catch. The giant catfish, not known for being a dependable fly-rod target, might earn the angler a world record. The existing International Game Fish Association record for blue cats in the 12-pound tippet class is just over 26 pounds and was caught in Florida. Christensen’s catch, should the IGFA recognize it, would shatter that mark.
For the record, Christensen determined the fish wouldn’t survive after the long battle — it was killed to be weighed for record consideration.
“I’ve never seen one that big,” Christensen told mysanantonio.com. “You almost never see a catfish like that.”