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Alex “Flathead” Doty lives to catch monster catfish. The Omaha resident has dialed in a couple of rivers and streams in Nebraska, the place he’ll fish via the evening within the hopes of hooking an enormous. His persistence paid off on Oct. 2, when Doty caught a 49-pound leucistic flathead from a small creek round 3 a.m. A pair hours later, he landed his personal-best flathead in the identical spot. The second catfish weighed 72 kilos.
“Take a look at these whoppers!” the Nebraska Sport and Parks Fee wrote in a Fb submit calling consideration to the catfish Doty caught on Monday. “One is a uncommon leucistic flathead, which happens when the melanin producing gene is masked, however not eradicated.”
Doty tells Out of doors Life that he caught the 2 large flatheads from a pure creek he frequents within the jap a part of the state. He adopted his standard program, which concerned placing his kayak on the water after nightfall and fishing all evening lengthy.
“That tends to be my schedule, and generally I’ll stick it out in the identical spot for a full 24 hours,” Doty says. “I’ll often kayak as much as strategic locations the place I believe fish will likely be transferring after which I’ll arrange camp on completely different spots. I’ll often fish from the financial institution, or generally I’ll drift from the kayak.”
After placing on the creek round 9:30 p.m. on Oct. 1, Doty paddled as much as one in every of his favourite holes and solid out a baited line. He says he usually makes use of dwell bluegills or bullheads when concentrating on large flatheads. Then he waited … for about six hours.
“I used to be drained, so I made a mattress out of my kayak. I laid down perhaps 5 minutes after which the fish of my goals was on the tip of my line. I used to be simply mendacity there when [the rod] went off.”
Doty says the leucistic catfish appeared “virtually like a ghost” with pure white pores and skin and blue eyes. He launched the uncommon fish again into the creek and saved working the identical gap. Two hours later, round 5:30 a.m., he caught the 73-pounder, which was solely 16 kilos shy of the state file. As standard, he launched that fish as effectively.
Learn Subsequent: This Man’s Pending State-Document Blue Catfish May Be the Similar Document Fish He Caught Final 12 months
Catching, photographing, and releasing (often known as CPR) has paid off for Doty in the long term. In some cases, he’s been in a position to catch the identical monster flathead a number of instances, and he says he’s fairly positive the 73-pound cat he caught on Monday is similar one he caught and launched earlier this summer time.
“I used to maintain smaller fish generally, however now I get extra satisfaction from letting each one go,” Doty says. “Final 12 months I caught the identical 53-pound fish thrice. It was the identical fish caught months other than completely different places on the creek. I may inform it was the identical fish by its whiskers and the scars on its head.”
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