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Cronley and his catfish
Photo: Blythe Summers/AP
A Mississippi fisherman has made a spectacular catch.
Eugene Cronley of Brandon Township landed a 135 pound blue catfish on April 7.
"I've been catching catfish all my life and I never dreamed of doing anything like this," he told the US newspaper Clarion Ledger.
He used herring as bait.
According to Cronley, the fight with the fish began five minutes after he set his bait.
"We had to untie the boat and let it float down the river," he said.
The catfish pulled out ten times more line than Cronley was able to catch up with.
Only after 40 minutes did the world become tired.
He too, said Cronley, was at the end of his rope.
Cronley's fish broke the previous rod-and-reel record of 43.1 kilograms caught by another fisherman in 2009, officials said.
It's also larger than the 100-pound blue catfish caught by a team of two in 1997.
However, Cronley did not break the world record for blue catfish.
According to the International Game Fish Association, it weighs 64.9 kilograms.
A fisherman had pulled this monster out of a lake in Virginia.
Cronley said his fish was about 1.4 meters long and 1.04 meters in circumference.
"He's a monster."
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