By TAM Staff. Photo courtesy Russell Whitehurst
What started as a day of bass fishing quickly turned into a catch to remember for Russell Whitehurst on a lake in Irwin County, Georgia.
Whitehurst was casting a red-and-black glitter worm in hopes of hooking a bass when something unexpected grabbed the bait. The fish felt so heavy and fought so strangely that he initially thought he had hooked a turtle. But when the catch finally came into view, it wasn’t a turtle—or even a bass. It was an enormous bream!
The trophy-sized fish measured an impressive 13 inches long and weighed 2.2 pounds. With its thick body and remarkable size, this was far from the average bream commonly caught in Georgia waters.
The fish was taken to Spitting Image Taxidermy, where its weight and measurements were officially recorded. The current Georgia state record is 3 pounds, 5 ounces. But, still, a bream of this size is a rare catch and one that would make just about any freshwater angler proud.
Sometimes the best fishing stories happen when you’re targeting something else—and Russell Whitehurst’s Irwin County giant certainly proved that!
