Byline: Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) — A Surprise angler has reeled in Arizona’s heaviest recorded fish.
Arizona Game and Fish Department officials said 56-year-old Eddie “Flathead Ed” Wilcoxson was asleep on his 24-foot pontoon boat April 12 when a flathead catfish began taking drag at Bartlett Lake northwest of Phoenix.
About 35 minutes later, Wilcoxson boated what Arizona Game and Fish Department officials say is a nearly 77-pound flathead catfish.
It measured more than 53 inches in total length, with a nearly 35-inch girth.
Officials said it’s the heaviest recorded fish of any species in state history, topping a 74-pound flathead catfish caught in 1988 out of the Colorado River.
Wilcoxson’s flathead beat the previous inland waters state record set in 2003 with a nearly 72-pound flathead caught at San Carlos Lake.
