World record may have been set by man who chased a ‘large shape’ across Arkansas lake
A man floating in an Arkansas lake spotted a “large shape” coming at him in the water and made a choice some might consider crazy.
Chris Cantrell began chasing it across Beaver Lake, resulting in a dramatic catch that experts say may qualify as a spearfishing worldrecord.
“Some people might be a bit squeamish if they saw a fish as long as them swimming directly under where they were floating,” Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said in a Sept. 7 news release.
“Cantrell of Berryville, Arkansas, swam toward such a beast and managed to land it using spearfishing tackle.”
It proved to be a paddlefish and it weighed 90 pounds, 12 ounces, state officials said. The current speargun record for a paddlefish is 71.8 pounds, set in 2019, officials said.
It happened Sept. 3 as Cantrell says he and two friends were looking for striped bass in 15 to 20 feet of water near the Beaver Lake dam. The 28,000-acre lake sits in northwest Arkansas, near the Missouri state line.
“I thought it was a gar at first, but then I was able to get close enough to see what it was and take the shot,” he said in the release.
“I dropped the gun after the shot because the fish made a strong dive when it was hit. With a big fish, you drop the gun so that it doesn’t pull you down. The float line will keep it pinned. By the time I was back at the surface, the fish had already pulled the line from the gun and the 50 feet of float line.”
It took nearly 15 minutes to get the fish in the boat and it was defiant to the end, forcing Cantrell to use his dive knife, the state reports.
Regional state fisheries supervisor Jon Stein confirmed the species, which is required before Cantrell can apply for record status. It will likely set a speargun record, but bigger paddlefish have been taken by hook and line, including a 118.9-pounder caught two years ago in the lake, Stein said.
Sonar images suggest Beaver Lake holds paddlefish near 120 pounds, he said. State officials believe the big fish “are holdovers from stockings that took place from 1996 to 2000” in the lake.
Cantrell reported he has been “spearfishing for a little more than two months,” the state said.
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