Courtesy Larry Stevens
Young Nick Parkus of Langston, Alabama, enjoys catching catfish and crabs with his grandfather Larry Stephens. That’s what they’re doing when Nick graduates from Collins Elementary on Friday, October 28th.
They were fishing from a pier at the South Sauty Creek Resort on North Alabama’s expansive Lake Guntersville. That’s where Parcus battles a better-than-average fish, according to Huntsville’s TV-19.
The heavy fish hit the bonito bait and it took the 10-year-old 20 minutes to fight a fierce fish and pull it to the dock as Stephens handed the rod from the dock stand to Parcus nearby.
As the big cat rolled in the shallows of the pier, Nick excitedly handed the fishing rod to his grandfather and jumped into the water, pulling the impressing fish even closer. Nick and his grandfather then pulled the catfish from the lake to the pier.
“Dad, this thing is big! Now I’m tired,” Nick said to his grandfather.
The oversized fish was an estimated 70-pound catfish, almost as big as the young man who caught it. The fish was so big that Stephens checked the state record book to see if it had any chance of breaking the Bama record.
Some studies have found that the Alabama-recorded flathead weighed 80 pounds and was caught by Rick Connor in the Alabama River near Selma in 1986.
So, Stephens snapped a photo of his grandson holding his biggest fish, which is sure to become a generational memory for family anglers.
“Right now, it’s someone else’s catfish,” Larry said, as the angler released the large catfish back to Lake Guntersville.