Boy catches record-setting fish in Arkansas. It weighs just 1 pound, 15 ounces

Anglers in Arkansas have caught some behemoth fish to earn records, including a 116-pound blue catfish in 2001.

But the state’s newest record, officials said in a July 23 news release, wasn’t quite that big.

At just 1 pound, 15 ounces, Daniel Bridgmon’s June 14 catch along the Bull Shoals Dam landed the 11-year-old boy’s name in the state record books.

Why is that?

Simple: Daniel’s entry was the first for the white sucker species in Arkansas.

“It’s pretty exciting to see Daniel’s catch being recognized like this,” Thomas Bridgmon, the boy’s father, told the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

Daniel was with his father when he made the record-setting catch in the White River.

They were hoping to hook trout, but Daniel reeled in the sucker when it bit a worm on his line.

“He thought it was a brown trout at first until we got it close enough to see it,” Daniel’s father told state officials.

Even after a closer look, the father and son weren’t sure what Daniel caught.

“I called a local fly shop and they said the state park where we were at had a scale and staff that might help,” Thomas Bridgmon said in the news release. “They knew it was a sucker of some sort, and when we weighed it, it came up heavier than one of the sucker state records we could find, so we drove to Mountain Home to get an official identification and weight.”

Since there was no previous white sucker state record, Daniel’s catch — all 31 ounces of it — set the bar.

It’s one of the smallest record catches in Arkansas, but the 11-ounce mooneye still holds the title for the tiniest record.

“Records like Daniel’s inspire the next generation of anglers and remind us why protecting our aquatic resources is so vital,” AGFC District Fisheries Supervisor Joe Chilton said in the release.