Chris Cantrell, of Berryville, Arkansas, speared an enormous paddlefish over Labor Day weekend whereas diving in Beaver Lake. The fish weighed over 90 kilos and is a doable spearfishing world document, in accordance with the Arkansas Sport and Fish Fee.
Cantrell was diving within the Northwest Arkansas lake together with his pal Andy Jeffries and brother-in-law Kalvin Cackler on Sept. 3. They have been on the lookout for striped bass and carp that day, however when Cantrell noticed the enormous paddlefish, he determined to make a play for it.
“I used to be on my third and ultimate dive of the day once I noticed it,” Cantrell informed AGFC. “I used to be possibly 15 to twenty toes underwater once I noticed the big form. I assumed it was a gar at first, however then I used to be in a position to get shut sufficient to see what it was and take the shot.”
Cantrell had the proper gear to battle an outsized fish. His speargun had a float line hooked up, which allowed him to stay the paddlefish with a barbed spear with out getting pulled down by the 90-pound brute.
“I dropped the gun after the shot as a result of the fish made a powerful dive when it was hit,” Cantrell defined. “With an enormous fish, you drop the gun in order that it doesn’t pull you down. The float line will preserve it pinned. By the point I used to be again on the floor, the fish had already pulled the road from the gun and the 50 toes of float line. It was pulling towards the float on the floor.”
The float line did its job and saved the huge fish from diving too deep, whereas Cantrell pulled on the principle line and regularly labored the paddlefish to the floor. After a 15-minute battle, he drew the fish shut sufficient to kill it together with his dive knife. With the fish dispatched and loaded of their pontoon boat, the trio of spear fishermen knew they may have a record-sized fish on their arms. The onerous half was finding an authorized scale to weight it on.
“It was a vacation weekend, so discovering someplace with licensed scales that was open took a very long time,” Cantrell mentioned. “The AGFC workplace was closed, and licensed scales are required for any document submissions. My sister truly urged we strive calling a UPS retailer. To my shock, one agreed.”
Putting Cantrell’s paddlefish on an authorized UPS scale, it weighed 90 kilos, 12 ounces, which ought to be large enough to set a brand new spearfishing world document for the species. These data are maintained by the Worldwide Underwater Spearfishing Affiliation, which lists the present paddlefish world document as a 72-pound fish speared by Wesley Steward in 2019.
Jon Stein, regional fisheries supervisor for the AGFC, verified that Cantrell’s fish is certainly a paddlefish. He additionally mentioned outsized paddlefish usually are not unusual in Beaver Lake, and that the majority of these big fish are holdovers from stockings that befell in 1996 and 2000. The present Arkansas rod-and-reel document—a 118-pound, 9-ounce paddlefish—was caught from the identical lake in 2020, and Stein mentioned that anglers there often report sonar imaging revealing paddlefish within the 100-pound class.
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Trying on the state’s fishing data guide, Cantrell’s paddlefish would fall below the “unrestricted sort out document” class, which is for fish caught by any authorized means aside from a rod and reel. Since there are presently no entries for paddlefish on this class, Cantrell’s fish ought to go down as a brand new state document.
Cackler, who runs the Beaver Lake Spearfishing Fb web page, informed AGFC that he and his brother-in-law are getting the paperwork collectively and plan to submit the fish to the IUSA. No matter whether or not it qualifies as a world document, although, it was undoubtedly the most important fish Cantrell has speared within the two months since he took up the game.
“My greatest fish earlier than this was a 22-pound striped bass,” Cantrell mentioned. “It was a visit to recollect.”
