Though it hasn’t been licensed by the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Fee, the chunky yellow perch that Chuck Most important caught on Monday could possibly be a brand new state document. On the very least, it ought to tie the present state document, a 3-pound fish caught in 2021.
Most important, of Ellwood Metropolis, was fishing off Presque Isle on Lake Erie when the perch hit his jig, based on the Pittsburgh Submit-Gazette. Most important rapidly landed the fish and took his catch to Reddi Bait in Bridgewater to have it weighed on licensed scales. Fisheries personnel with the PFBC have been there to witness the official weight studying of three.02 kilos.
This led Tim Reddinger, the proprietor of Reddi Bait, to declare the fish a possible state document in a video he posted to Fb. However whereas Most important’s perch is technically the heaviest ever caught and weighed on a licensed scale in Pennsylvania, it’d solely rank as a tie due to the state’s protocols round fishing information. PFBC guidelines require new state-record fish to outweigh the present document by at the very least two ounces, and official weights are usually rounded to the closest ounce.
That is exactly what occurred in April 2021, when Kirk Rudzinski caught his state-record yellow perch from Lake Erie. Rudzinski’s fish formally weighed 2.98 kilos on a licensed scale, however that weight of 47.68 ounces was rounded as much as 48 ounces (or 3 kilos) and authorized as such within the document books.
If fisheries officers take the identical method with Most important’s fish and spherical off its weight of 48.32 ounces to 48 ounces even, it will likely be sufficient to tie however not substitute Rudzinski’s document. (And even when they don’t spherical down, Most important’s fish nonetheless wouldn’t qualify as a document as a result of it solely outweighs Rudzinski’s perch by .64 ounces, which is wanting the 2 ounces required to interrupt a document.)
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It could possibly be a number of weeks earlier than officers resolve on the document standing of Most important’s perch. PFBC didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark, and neither did the angler.
Both approach, Most important’s catch proves that Lake Erie remains to be producing loads of whopper yellow perch. Along with Rudzinski’s Pennsylvania document, each the Ohio and New York information have been caught there. Ohio’s document perch weighed 2 kilos 12 ounces and was caught in 1984, whereas the New York document weighed 3 kilos 8 ounces and was caught in 1982. The IGFA lists the all-tackle yellow perch document as a 4-pound 3-ounce big that was caught in New Jersey in 1865.
