Zach Matthews
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Thanks for the suggestions guys. Eric, I have one of the 160 gig Western Digital Passport drives and like it. I just wish it had a Firewire connection in addition to (or in place of the) the USB 2.0. Sometimes it just seems slow when backing up images.
Ok, here’s what my research has uncovered. This contest is a lot closer than it appears. Let’s start with the weirdest entry:
“The largest American paddlefish on record was caught in Iowa and weighed 198 pounds.”
That makes Leonard’s 50lb. paddlefish about 25% of the world record (but keep in mind that’s not a fly-caught world record).
However, Simon Chu’s roughly 10 lbs. brown trout is also right at 25% of the world record (40 lbs., 4 oz., caught out of the Little Red River in my home state of Arkansas).
Andrew Bell’s 9 lbs. Pacific Bonefish poses an interesting question, because we don’t know the species and Indo-Pacific Bones supposedly get bigger than Atlantic bones (there may just be less pressure, however, leading to larger average *catches*). We do have our friend Morsie to rely on:
“The official world-record bonefish is an 8.61kg specimen caught off Zululand, South Africa way back in 1962.”
I assume that’s an Atlantic specimen. 8.61kg is about 18 pounds. I can’t find any evidence of Indo-Pacific bones being any bigger than that weight, and that figure is given in scientific texts as the max size for albula glossodonta (the Indo-Pacific bonefish) as well. Thus, I am awarding Andrew a whopping 50% of the world record figure!
Next, Andrew Brown’s 3 lbs. largemouth bass is about 15% of the the world record caught in Georgia so many years ago.
Michael Exl’s 34 lbs. common carp (cyprinus carpo) is 40% of the current world-record of 84 pounds (caught in Morocco!)
I don’t know the species on Rocky Cox’s carp either, but it looks like a bighead carp (click for link). The bighead record is coincidentally also 85 lbs., hooked by a bowfisherman in Alabama. Thus, Rocky gets only 11% of the total (but he did catch it on a fly – I can’t find a fly-caught record).
So, without further ado, the winners are:
Andrew Bell with his whopping 9 lb. bonefish and Michael Exl’s mammoth 34lb. carp! I want to give a tip of the hat to the folks who submitted, especially those who threw in such weird species. If anyone wants to provide me with a verifiable fly-caught record that would upset my math in their favor (or if they want to submit their fish as a NEW WORLD RECORD!!!!), please feel free to do so by email and I will come up with a consolation prize. 🙂
This was a lot of fun, guys. Thanks to everyone who participated. Winners, please PM me your preferred mailing addresses.
Zach
Scott, thanks for sharing that video and stills. Looks like an excellent day on the water. That is definitely a Brown of a lifetime, a real beauty.
Scott, Corey –
Yes, still have some available.
Jerod – I’m sorry man, we did what we could to accommodate everyone’s head size.
Andrew –
I have yours ready to go but I was waiting on Mike to figure out whether he would get his or not before I sent another international package round (I have to do that from my local post office as opposed to our office mail room).
