Alabama teen sets Florida catfish record
GORDON, AL (WSFA) - Charles Patchen is 13 years old and weighs just 90 pounds, so it was no surprise when the teen from Gordon was worn out after reeling in a fish almost three-fourths his size.
"I was shaky and I didn't feel like doing nothing else," Charles said.
Patchen caught a 63.8 pound flathead catfish in the Chattahoochie River in Florida, setting a new Florida state record by eight pounds.
"Me and my dad, we had been fishing and the bream just stopped so he told me to get a bream out of the live well," Charles said.
"When it started ripping that line off that Zebco, look here, I knew then," said Bryan Atwell, Patchen's step-father. "It's a 14 pound test line and it was just ripping it like nothing."
Patchen said it took nearly two hours to reel in the catfish, and he couldn't contain his excitement when he got it out of the water.
"He picked it up by the gills and put it in the boat, I ran to the back of the boat," Charles said. "I did kind of like a scream, but not like a scared scream, like an excited scream."
Atwell said he has heard stories of fish this size, but he had never seen one in person.
"I've heard stories of over there by the dam and stuff like that, but I've never seen one in real life," Atwell said.
Patchen isn't done setting records though. He's hoping to break the bass state record while Atwell is going for the Alabama catfish record. The two are hoping to take the boat out as much as they can over the summer.
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