Here is the recent story from the Fort Worth Star Telegram on my sons state junior angler record fish.
BY BOB HOOD
Special to the Star-Telegram
Some anglers dream of making a record-setting catch and having their names inked into the Texas Fish Records book.
Twelve-year-old Lane Ferguson of Fort Worth not only has experienced that but has received seven awards for catching a monster blue catfish at Lake Worth just before Christmas, which was certified by the Texas Parks and Wildlife recently.
On Dec. 23, the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw middle school student caught a blue catfish weighing 66.28 pounds on a shad caught in a cast net by his father, professional catfishing guide Chad Ferguson of North Texas Catfishing Guide Service.
The catch beat the former Lake Worth record blue catfish of 55 pounds caught on Dec. 22, 2001, by Larry Farmer. A blue catfish weighing 72 pounds also was caught at Lake Worth in December but it was not certified as a record because two anglers shared their efforts in catching and landing the fish.
“I have had Lane fishing ever since he was big enough to walk,” Chad Ferguson said. “He is definitely an outdoors person, fishing or hunting. He can use any type of rod and reel, from bait casters to spinning and spin casting gear. He caught the big one at Lake Worth in about 22-feet deep water on cut shad and it took him about 10 minutes to get it to the boat. We got it all on video.
“We tried three different ledges, and Lane hooked into the big fish on the third ledge. I wasn’t sure my scales were exact, so we loaded up and went to another place that had certified scales to see if it beat the Lake Worth record, which it did. That was the only fish we caught that day but it was the one we were hoping to catch.”
Ferguson said he knew his son had hooked a possible lake record as soon as he set the hook. “When he began fighting it, I pulled up the anchor and started reeling the other rods in,” Ferguson said. “It was pretty windy and the fish began moving the boat across the water. I finally was able to net the fish and we took it to have it weighed on other scales, then brought it back to Lake Worth and released it.”
Lake Worth is one of the oldest man-made reservoirs in Texas. It was impounded in 1914 on the West Fork of the Trinity River by the city of Fort Worth for water-use purposes. But it has undergone siltation problems over the years that have limited its deepest depths to about 20 feet or lower.
A state fish hatchery used to be nearby on the 3,489-surface-acre reservoir but has since only been occupied by a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fisheries research facility.
Lake Worth also gained national attention in the 1960s and years afterward when individuals reported sightings of a goat-fish-man-like creature later tabbed as the “Lake Worth Monster.” The lake also has had reported sightings of alligators and other interesting creatures, but for anglers, the big news has been about fish.
The lake has produced several big catches besides blue catfish. Among them are a 12-pound largemouth bass, 10-pound hybrid striped bass, 2.28-pound white bass, 12.40-pound channel catfish and 49.40-pound yellow catfish.
Fish consumption advisories for some species of fish that were established and later modified by Texas health officials remain on Lake Worth.
The recent big blue catfish catches likely are the result of the state’s last stockings of blue catfish in 1990, when 36,465 fingerlings were stocked there. The lake also has a good population of largemouth bass, which likely will flourish with the 2011 stockings of 173,982 fingerling Florida bass.
As for the Fergusons, it’s time to move on to other possible records. “We are going to start targeting Eagle Mountain Lake record for blue catfish,” Chad Ferguson said, “and this is one of the best time of the year to catch big catfish.”
Their target: a 45.56-pound Eagle Mountain Lake record blue catfish caught on April 30, 2011, by Doug Bailey.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/04/3712267/monster-catfish-no-match-for-fort.html
