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Teen angler lands 53 pound catfish

Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2019 9:47 pm
by WB Staff
Teen angler lands 53 pound catfish.jpg
Though she’d caught plenty of catfish before, 17-year-old Caitlyn Williams had never had anything on the line like the 53-pound, 47 1/2-inch flathead she landed near the Winfield Bridge on Nov. 3.

WINFIELD — When Caitlyn Williams hauled back on the fishing rod, she felt a power she’d never felt before.

She’d caught good-sized catfish, plenty of them. But none like this.

“The whole time I fought it, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This thing is huge!’ ” said Williams, a 17-year-old senior at Winfield High School. “It was, by far, the biggest catfish I’d ever had on the line.”

Fifteen tense minutes later, her fishing partner slipped a net under the monstrous flathead and, straining every muscle, lifted the writhing fish into the boat.

“And to think, it happened on a day when we weren’t sure we were going to catch anything,” Williams said.

The first Sunday in November dawned cold and clear, with a bluebird sky that offered unlimited visibility and only slightly less pessimism.

“Bluebird days aren’t usually good catfish days,” said Jon Helman, a family friend who introduced Williams to catfish angling a year ago.

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