Tennessee Man Catches Five-Foot-Long Prehistoric Paddlefish
I should do more fishing. By all accounts, it's one of the most relaxing things you can do. Well, by MY account, it was fun that one time.
The other time I went fishing was when I was a little kid and have no recollection of it, but I have seen the pictures. I caught a turtle. And, ironically, during my most recent fishing experience, in Grayson County in 2004, I caught a turtle. I don't know what the deal is with me and turtles, but there is apparently NO deal with me and fish.
And, really, I didn't exactly CATCH a turtle. I think I actually got something on my line 17 years ago and this enormous turtle just snatched it off. I went back to the campsite and ate a hotdog. Sigh.
My problem COULD be the location. If I were to go fishing, say, in middle Tennessee in the Caney Fork River, east of Nashville, I might luck into what these guys lucked into. I mean, if that paddlefish--all five feet and 55 pounds of it--has relatives, that will soon become a very popular fishing hole.
However, like these guys, I would hope they'd throw the prehistoric species back in the water. And they CAN be much bigger than that. The host of Animal Planet's River Monsters once tracked down a Chinese paddlefish that was 23 feet long. Lord.
Oh, and by the way, the largest fish ever caught in Kentucky was netted just three years ago. Glynn Grogan of Arlington pulled in a blue catfish that weighed in at more than 106 pounds. Good night. He, too, released it back into the water.
So, if you're an angler--if you got a line, and you got a pole--take off for an adventure in central Tennessee, where there's way more to offer than a crawdad hole.