It started off as a normal fishing trip. It was a rainy day, just like it had been for several days, with a high temp of 55 degrees expected. Mike O’Hara and his good buddy, Pete, headed out to fish the Missouri River in Nebraska.
“We started the day off by netting some fresh shad,” reported O’Hara. “Then we headed to the ramp on the Missouri River. We ran to our spot and anchored up at the mouth of a small tributary off the river.”
Just like they have done hundreds of times before, the anglers prepared their baits. “We cut our shad up into heads, filets, chunks, etc. We wanted to figure out what the cats wanted that day.”
They had marked a lot of single big fish in the area. “It can be tough marking cats in our river because of the huge population of Asian carp,” said O’Hara. “Those carp can look really good on sonar if you don’t know what you’re looking for. I like to fish large marks that are typically alone, or don’t look like they are schooled up.”
The angling buddies were drenched with rain as they set their rigs and began the wait for a bite. Their medium heavy Denali Bottom Feeder Rods were paired with Shimano Cardiff reels, 80-pound braid and 60-pound fluorocarbon leader.
“About 20 minutes into the set I notice my Denali get hit and slowly start loading up,” stated O’Hara. “I swore it was a flathead the way it hit. I began to reel down on the fish and it was hooked up.”
The hook up was so solid it felt a bit like he had snagged structure. “I started fighting the fish,” said O’Hara. “At first I was thinking I had got caught on a log or something before it just took off. It was pulling drag like I’ve never seen. The fish stayed down and I began to fight him for around 20 minutes.”
The first indication of size came when the fish surfaced. “We saw the fish’s tail slap the water and I knew it was a beast,” reported O’Hara. “We finally got the fish up and began to try landing this fish. I have a big net and he just barely fit in there. After getting the fish in the boat we knew we had something special.”
They put the fish back in the net and tried to weight it on O’Hara’s 90 pound scales. The scales bottomed out and began to read error. “We took a length measurement of 55 inches and a girth of 41 inches,” reported O’Hara. “Those measurements put this fish over 100 pounds. Our current Nebraska state record is 100.08 ounces.”
Being a firm believer in selective harvest, O’Hara quickly dealt with the fish. “I knew this fish was a record breaker,” declared O’Hara. “I have a decent sized live well for fishing tourneys, but it was not big enough to hold this fish and keep it alive. I snapped some pics and released the fish right away.”
Based on the measurements, O’Hara’s blue would have probably smashed the existing Nebraska record. Instead of seeking certification he released the fish rather than risking its health. It was a remarkable gesture of sportsmanship from an angler that cares for the resource.
“I did not want to put the fish through the stress of getting it certified, knowing my livewell could not keep the fish alive,” revealed O’Hara. “I revived the fish and she swam back into the depths. I don’t care about my name in a book or having a record. I do regret not getting an exact weight on the fish, but again, trying to find someone with a scale big enough, would of have been stressful on the fish. At the end of the day I knew that I had caught a fish of a life time, and that was good enough for me.”
Epilogue: The day’s fishin’ hole had also produced good catches in the past. “I fished this same place last year with my good buddy Andy (Kitty Gitter),” recalled O’Hara. “He’s another fellow fisherman who is passionate about the release of these trophy fish. Andy boated a monster 79-pound blue that day.”
O’Hara’s return to that same fishin’ hole produced another great day, beyond his record sized blue. After getting the big fish back in the water the angling friends began fishing again on what would be an April Fool’s Day to remember. “Sure enough, boom, the pole goes down again,” offered O’Hara. “It was 56-pounder on the end of the line. After we get some pics of that fish and release it, almost instantly my buddy Pete catches a 30-pounder. We ended up catching 2 more blues that day around the 20-pound mark. Rainy cloudy days have always been my favorite times to catfish!”
