May
31, 2007
Provo,
UT - Utah County resident Elroy Colledge caught a huge channel catfish at Utah
Lake on May 24.
Elroy Colledge holds catfish caught at Utah Lake. The fish weighed 28.1 pounds.
An avid angler, Colledge was already ecstatic with the nine-pound channel
catfish he caught earlier in the day.
"I was with my granddaughter when she pulled a 15-pound catfish out of Utah Lake
years ago. Since then, she's teased me about how she caught a bigger fish than
me," Colledge says.
"I don't think I'll have to worry about our contest anymore. I immediately knew
that this was a once-in-lifetime fish."
Colledge caught the enormous fish at 10 a.m. It took him 30 minutes to finally
get it into the boat.
Colledge caught the huge catfish in the Mud Lake/Provo Bay part of the lake,
south of Utah Lake State Park. He caught the nine-pound channel catfish with a
piece of hot dog and the 28.1-pound catfish using a chicken heart. He had
17-pound test line on his reel, which was just strong enough to bring the
whiskered monster to the boat.
Colledge took his prized catch to Sportsman's Warehouse in Provo to have
measured. The fish measured 38 inches long and had a 28-inch girth.
The current state record channel catfish was also caught at Utah Lake in 1978 by
LeRoy Mortensen. It weighed in at 32 pounds, 8 ounces.
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