Jaylynn Parker tells Inside Edition Digital that she didn’t realize how big of a fish she had at first. Someone at a nearby campground had a scale, which could measure up to 99 pounds. When they put the fish on the scale, it “bottomed out,” her dad says.
A teen girl has set the record for the largest blue catfish ever to be caught in Ohio after reeling in a mammoth 101.11-pounder last month in a triumph that took weeks to confirm.
Jaylynn Parker, 15, of New Richmond, caught the fish on April 17. The fish was so large that she needed help from her father and their family friend to wrangle it out of the waters of the Ohio River.
“I was just completely in shock when he came up. I was definitely not expecting it,” she tells Inside Edition Digital.
The teen was on a boat with a family friend, while her father, Chuck, who was nursing a hurt back, casted his line from the shore. From there, he could hear his daughter excitedly screaming.
“I heard them yelling, so I knew that it was going to be a big fish because they don't yell for no reason," Chuck explains to Inside Edition Digital. "They drove the little boat with the fish in the net right past me, and so I seen it in the water and we could tell it was just giant."
Once Jaylynn realized what she had, her excitement boiled over.
“I was screaming. I was yelling. I was just like, ‘This is just a massive fish. This is the biggest I've ever seen in my life.’ I was yelling for my dad, like he could come out on the water or something. I was like, ‘Dad. Dad, this is a really big fish.’ I'm still in shock to it now. I still haven't fully comprehended that I caught the state record fish,” she says.
The Parker’s are an avid fishing family, but only fish that part of the Ohio River a few times a year.
“We can only fish that area of the river in that creek area when it floods. It floods probably four, five, six times a year. When the water gets high enough to where we can actually run these limb lines, it has to be really flooded,” Chuck explains. “Other than that, we're on our boat fishing or fishing a bank with rods and reels.”
Chuck says it was “pretty cool” for his daughter to catch the behemoth from the muddy waters. "The best part is watching her pull them up, because when those big fish start pulling, it jerks the tar out of her,” he laughs.
When they took the fish to shore, Chuck says, “we knew that he was big. We weren't sure how big, and we did not have a scale with us.”
Luckily, someone at a nearby campground had a scale, which could measure up to 99 pounds. When they put the fish on the scale, it “bottomed out,” Chuck says.
“So we knew he was over 100, and we knew the record was 96, so we knew we had a big fish there. We immediately called the game wardens and three games showed up,” he says.
Parker’s catch took nearly a month to confirm as the largest blue catfish ever caught in the state and beat the 96-pound blue catfish pulled from the Ohio River in 2009 by Chris Rolph, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
“It was such a nail-bite. Every day I was like, ‘Have you heard anything today?’ It just took so long and I'm so impatient. I want to know right away. It was really, I don't know. It was nerve-wracking, because I was like, ‘What if I don't get it? What if something happens?’ I'm pretty happy about that,” she says.
The teen was given the good news over the weekend by Outdoor Writers of Ohio after her 101.11-pound fish was officially recognized in their records. The Outdoor Writers of Ohio marks the state’s official angling records since the 1940s, Cincinnati.com reported.
The teen’s fish had to undergo an extensive vetting process before it could enter the history books. To be logged into record, a professional biologist must identify the fish's species, the fish must be weighed on a scale certified by the county auditor and the Outdoor Writers of Ohio must confirm all laws were obeyed while catching the fish, Cincinnati.com reported.
“It's mind-blowing at this point. I'm still in shock about it," Jaylynn says. "I still haven't fully comprehended that I broke the state record and I caught this big fish. It's just not something I'm thinking about and bragging about. It's just something that happened and I'm just moving on from it, but I'm super excited about it."
Unlike some prize catches, the Parker’s didn’t keep their monstrous fish to mount on a wall or even enjoy as a meal. Instead, they released the beast back into the water.
Jaylynn jokes that she could catch the fish again and it might be heavier to break the record she set. However, being as young as she is, she has her sights set on bigger fish to fry.
“There's always a chance that I could catch another big one," she says. "It's pretty much just all luck at that point."
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