This 95-pound Oklahoma catfish won’t break any records, but it’s a giant nonetheless. Angler Bradley Courtright caught the monster flathead on a trotline at Pine Creek Reservoir.
According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, the fish is almost 20 pounds larger than the existing rod-and-reel state record, which weighed 78 pounds, 8 ounces and was caught by Richard Williams from El Reno Lake in 2010. However, Courtright’s fish is 11 pounds lighter than the unrestricted division state record, which weighed 106 pounds and was caught on a trot line in 1977 from Wister Reservoir.
Courtright’s fish is the largest flathead ever caught from Pine Creek, which is a 3,750-acre impoundment of Little River in eastern Oklahoma’s McCurtain County.
The IGFA all-tackle world record for flathead catfish weighed 123 pounds. It was caught from Elk City Reservoir in Kansas in 1998.
For more Oklahoma records, see www.wildlifedepartment.com.