Angler reels in West Virginia record 2 years in a row with huge catfish, officials say

Allen Burkett returned to the shore of South Mill Creek Lake in West Virginia with bluegill cut-bait and a year-old state record.

On July 20, he made history again, beating his own record for biggest channel catfish just over one year after he broke the 17-year state record, according to the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.

Burkett’s fish clocked in at 37.5 pounds and 40.43 inches, narrowly besting his record from June 2022, according to a press release from WVDNR. Before 2022, the previous record was set in 2005 when Michael Sears pulled in a 33.42-pound channel catfish that was 40.3 inches long, state records show.

When Burkett of Moorefield broke the 17-year-old record in 2022, he told WHSV, “All my life I did a lot of catfishing, trout fishing, a lot of fishing period. I catch a lot of big fish, but I was due for a good one.”

That time around, Burkett was fishing with chicken liver at South Mill Creek Lake in Grant County, West Virginia, according to WVDNR.

The state announced in a press release that his record-breaking fish that year was 36.96 pounds and 40.59 inches. WVDNR district fishery biologist Brandon Keplinger measured both of Burkett’s record-breaking catfish, the press release says.

In 2022, Burkett was “looking forward to catching an even bigger fish in the future,” WHSV reported. He did just that.

Grant County is about 200 miles northeast of Charleston, West Virginia.

Channel catfish are popular catches for anglers, and they can get even bigger than Burkett’s. The world record weight for a channel catfish was set in 1964 by an angler who pulled in a 58-pound catch in South Carolina, according to the Smithsonian Institution.