‘We Were Hunting for That Fish.’ Nebraska Guide Breaks 21-Year-Old Catfish Record

Nebraska fishing guide George Thompson knew exactly where he was headed Sunday, when he launched his boat on the Missouri River along with his two sons. He says they’d hooked something huge the week prior on the stretch north of Council Bluffs, where the river forms the border between Nebraska and Iowa.

“I knew it was a monster fish that was probably in that 100-pound range,” says Thompson, who operates Missouri River Catfish Guides out of Omaha. “We were hunting for that specific fish when we went down there [on Sunday].”

After finding a deep hole on the Iowa side to anchor on, Thompson cast out a catfish rig baited with cut skipjack.

“And you know, I got lucky. Because that’s exactly where he was.”

He says the take was fairly soft. At first Thompson thought he’d hooked a smaller fish, and he almost passed the rod off to his three-year-old son, George Jr.

“I said, ‘G, get ready,’” Thompson tells Outdoor Life. “Then the fish turned south and you couldn’t stop him. I was like, ‘Oh, okay. Hold on, G. This one might pull you in.’”  

With the monster catfish swimming in heavy current, Thompson had to bring in his anchor and chase after it. The fish pulled them over to the Nebraska side, then over to the Iowa side and back a few times. He battled the fish for around 30 minutes before finally netting it boatside.

Thompson had caught blue catfish approaching the 100-pound mark before, and he knew when he held the fish that it was a record contender in Iowa. The previous state record had been on the books since 2004 — a 101-pound blue cat that was caught on a set line. 

So, Thompson called up his friend Joel, who works at Anchor Inn Bait-and-Tackle, to help get a preliminary weight on the fish. After putting the catfish on his friend’s scale at the boat ramp, he contacted the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and officials helped him find a certified scale at a nearby butcher shop.

At this point, Thompson could have harvested the big blue, but he was dead set on keeping it alive. He put the fish in his boat’s giant livewell and turned on the aerators to oxygenate the water. Joel had also brought a water truck so they could keep replenishing the livewell.

“We had the whole works, and we were able to trailer the boat there with the fish still in the livewell,” Thompson says. “I couldn’t have done it without Joel.”

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A DNR official met them at the certified scale, where he measured the fish at 60 inches long. It weighed 105 pounds, which was more than enough to replace the 21-year-old Iowa record. Thompson’s state-record blue catfish has since been certified by the state, and it’s now back in the Missouri River where it belongs. 

“You know, my dad had been on me for a while about turning in a state record. It was kind of his dream,” Thompson says. “He and I, we’d caught and released several hundred pounders over the years. But this was the first one that we’d actually decided we could keep him alive, get him certified, and get him back in the water healthy. That was a huge deal.”