It was around 2 p.m. on March 13 when Kevin Williford noticed one of the six rods on the bow of guide Michael Littlejohn’s 22-foot center-console bending deeply, signaling that a big catfish had hit a deep bait.
Williford grabbed the rod, set the hook, and a 10-minute, deep and brutal fight with the fish began.
“The fish was very strong and took line against a heavy reel drag,” said Williford, a 58-year-old hospice nurse from Woodville, Texas. “It took about 10 minutes for me to get it up near the boat so Michael could net it. We had some trouble getting the fish in the net, though. It was comical because it wouldn’t fit, and the fish was flipping and flopping.
“But he finally got it netted, and we rolled it up into the boat.”
The blue catfish was immense, with a body and stomach larger than most grown men. Williford lifted and cradled the fish, and photos of him holding it show that it nearly dwarfs the man.
The anglers weighed the 74.5-pound catfish with an onboard digital scale before releasing it alive back into the sprawling 38,000-acre Lake Tawakoni, located east of Dallas.
“I wanted to top my biggest catfish, and that 74.5-pounder did it,” Williford told Wired2Fish. “My previous best was a 72-pounder I caught seven years ago from the same lake with the same Tawakoni Guide Service.”
Lake Tawakoni is a well-known big cat hotspot, which is why Williford drove several hours to fish with Littlejohn, who owns the guide service. Some years ago, Littlejohn led an angler to an 87-pound blue cat, which holds the lake’s record. He also released an 81-pounder for another client this year.
The Texas record blue cat is a 121.5-pounder caught from Lake Texoma in 2004 by Cody Mullennix using a shad bait. The world record blue cat is 143 pounds, caught in Kerr Lake, Virginia, in 2011.
“The Tawakoni Guide Service doesn’t keep any catfish over 10 pounds, so they preserve the lake’s big blues,” Williford explained. “I caught six smaller cats that day, weighing 5 to 8 pounds, which are better eating than big cats. So, I had plenty of fish to take home.”
Williford said he caught 10 or 12 catfish that day, with five 20-pounders caught and released. His brother Mark had to cancel his trip with Kevin to Tawakoni. Mark had hoped to top his best catfish, a 76-pounder caught on the lake.
“Mark will have to wait to do that because the best big cat action on the lake is in the spring,” Kevin said. “So next year, he’ll try to top that big 76-pounder.”
The 70-degree, sunny weather and light winds that day on Tawakoni weren’t ideal for fishing, Kevin said. Guide Littlejohn prefers to drift along lake structures with big cut carp baits bumping the bottom. But with no wind chop and bright sun, the catfish go deep, and anglers have to slow-troll using electric motors.
“Michael was on a hotspot, a sunken sandbar structure that day, and the catfish were chewing,” Kevin explained. “The bar was about 18 feet deep and surrounded by 30 feet of water.”
“I sure wish my brother had made that trip. We may try to come back later this year to Tawakoni for hybrid stripers.”
