Record-breaking fish fought Pennsylvania angler for 25 minutes, but lost the battle
Angler Richard Nicholson was out fishing with his son last month when he heard his son yelling about something big tugging on his fishing line.
“I looked over and the rod had really taken a bend, so I grabbed it and just started reeling,” Nicholson told the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. “I knew right away it was something big, and I thought maybe it was a musky.”
As the 62-year-old fisherman tried reeling it in, he said the fish fought him for about 25 minutes. The fish lost the battle, but it would soon be named the state record walleye.
“It was so big that it actually broke the net,” said Nicholson, of Connellsville in Fayette County. The state department said Nicholson was targeting walleyes with “a spinning reel equipped with 6-pound test and a live creek chub attached to a number two hook, weighted down with bb-size split shot and a slip sinker.”
They had a lot of success catching fish on Oct. 28 — “the best day ever” — but it wasn’t until about 6:45 p.m. when that huge walleye tugged on the line.
When Nicholson finally saw the walleye, measuring 34 inches with a girth of 21.5 inches, he says he was “thinking more about fish fillets” than he was about state records.
“He put the large Walleye into a five-gallon bucket with some water in an attempt to keep it alive until he could get it home,” the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission said in a Nov. 16 news release. “The fish survived a short drive to his residence, where Nicholson placed the Walleye into his spring fed live well normally used to keep minnows, or to hold fish overnight after a late night of fishing, before cleaning them the next morning.”
It was then that his son, Richard Nicholson Jr., starting looking up state records.
“Dad, we better get this thing weighed,” Nicholson recalled his son saying.
The next morning, once the fish had died, Nicholson took the fish to a grocery store with a certified scale, according to the news release.
Weighing in at 18 pounds and 1 ounce, the walleye appeared to have beat a 41-year-old state record. The record was currently held by Mike Holly of Bradford, with a 17 pound and 9 ounce walleye caught from the Allegheny Reservoir in 1980.
Nicholson’s walleye officially was named a record-breaking fish after a visual inspection of the fish and a review by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
“It’s really unbelievable that with so much big water all across this state, including the big rivers and Lake Erie, that this fish was right here in the Yough,” Nicholson said. “There’s a lot of pride in that, and I’d bet there are a lot more records in that river if people would fish it harder.
“Like I said before, I like to eat fish, so I wasn’t after the record, but if this inspires somebody else to get out there and fish, then it’s all worth it to me,” he continued. “We need more people out there fishing. That’s what it’s all about.”
The fisherman plans to have a taxidermist create a molded replica of the record catch, and he says he’ll be sharing the meat with friends and family.
In Pennsylvania, state record fish are measured by weight and must weight at least 2 more ounces than the current holder to beat a record.
Fayette County is in southwest Pennsylvania, about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh.
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