“I’ve received some bass tournaments … however that bowfin was the very best combat I’ve ever had from any fish”
Lauren Noble holds up the brand new West Virginia state-record bowfin, which weighed 10.62 kilos. {Photograph} courtesy Lauren Noble
Marshall College school pupil Lauren Noble had simply began fishing together with her boyfriend on March 12 when she obtained a strong strike on her second forged of the afternoon. The fish put a deep bend in her plug rod and fought doggedly within the backwater slough they have been fishing off the Ohio River in West Virginia.
“We have been after bass or stripers, and I’d forged one in every of my favourite square-bill red-and-black crankbaits with 15-pound check fluorocarbon line — and wham, I obtained a success,” Noble, who lives in Letart, tells Outside Life.
At first, she thought she had a bass or a striper. However when the fish jumped and cleared the floor, she and her boyfriend Zachary Fields noticed that it was a large bowfin (also called a mudfish).
“It got here utterly out of the water, then went deep once more and actually fought onerous,” she says. “I instructed Zachary to get the web, and after I introduced it to our bass boat he scooped it up. I don’t assume I’d have caught that fish with out him utilizing a internet – that fish had some sharp tooth.”
![West Virginia anglers with the new state-record bowfin.](https://www.outdoorlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/w_va_bowfin_record_2.jpg?w=1000)
They unhooked the bowfin, laughing and celebrating the nice catch, when Fields talked about that it could possibly be sufficiently big to interrupt the state report. He referred to as his pal Adam Russell, who used to work within the fisheries division for the West Virginia Division of Pure Sources.
“He checked out an image of our fish and immediately stated it was a report,” Noble says. “So, we put it in our boat’s dwell effectively and referred to as DNR to report what we had.”
The anglers met WVDNR officer Jeff Hansbarger at a fuel station in Conway. Hansbarger had an authorized scale with him, so he weighed and measured the fish, after which helped the anglers fill out the paperwork.
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The bowfin’s licensed weight of 10.62 kilos makes Noble the new state record holder for the species by weight. The WVDNR additionally acknowledges size data, and Noble’s 30.2-inch fish wasn’t fairly lengthy sufficient to beat out the earlier size report, a 32.25-inch bowfin caught in 1994 by angler Donald Newcomb.
With the report official, Noble and Fields put the bowfin again of their boat’s dwell effectively and drove again to the Ohio River. The fish was nonetheless “alive and frisky,” in line with Noble, in order that they launched it again into the river round 10:45 p.m.
Noble, who’s fished up and down the East Coast and has competed in native bass tournaments, says after touchdown that state-record fish, she may need to focus on bowfin extra usually.
“Principally we goal bass, and I’ve received some bass tournaments, with my greatest prize a $1,000 verify. However that bowfin was the very best combat I’ve ever had from any fish.”