World Record Blue Cat Caught Yesterday

Heres the Url and the story.

http://tinyurl.com/djglj

ALTON, Ill. - It sounds like the sort of tale Mark Twain might have cooked
up: A man fishing in the Mississippi River hauls in a blue catfish roughly
the size of a sixth-grader. But this is no fish story. Early Sunday, Tim
Pruitt caught a 124-pound blue catfish.

To get a sense of just how big that is, the state record holder was a mere
85 pounds and the world record holder tipped the scales at 121 pounds, 8
ounces.

Now, Pruitt, whose fish has already been weighed in the presence of a
conservation police officer and measured by a biologist for the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources, is expected to submit documentation to the
International Game Fish Association so that it can be certified a world
record holder.

Once that is done, the catch should be approved as the world's largest blue
catfish, replacing the current champion that was caught Jan. 16, 2004, in
Lake Texoma, Texas, said Becky Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the association.

Pruitt's fish, measuring 58 inches long and 44 inches around, was swimming
below the Melvin Price Lock and Dam on the Mississippi River at Alton on
Saturday night when it grabbed Pruitt's line. The two struggled for more
than half an hour, and at one point the fish dragged the boat carrying
Pruitt, his wife and a friend before Pruitt could reel it in.

The fish has been kept alive and will be on display in a tank at the
Cabela's Outfitter store in Kansas City, Kan., according to the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources.

Pruitt, 33, of Godfrey, told the (Peoria) Journal Star's outdoors columnist
that he considered releasing the fish in the river but decided to donate it
to Cabela's "because I thought it might be neat to give people a chance to
see a fish that massive."

Unfortunately it died.