Angler thought he snagged tree in Maryland river. It was a record-sized invasive fish

A Maryland angler who thought he caught his fishing line on a tree ended up fighting it out with a record-sized invasive fish last week, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources reports.

It was identified as a 57-pound, 50-inch long flathead catfish, which is 17 pounds bigger than the state’s existing flathead weight, officials said.

Joshua Dixon, 34, reports the fish did not give up easily. It took 30 minutes to reel it in during a Dec. 27 outing on the Susquehanna River, northeast of Baltimore, according to a news release. Dixon lives in Cecil County, in the northeast corner of the state, officials said.

“It was really weird because I thought I snagged a tree,” Dixon said in the release. “It didn’t feel like a fish but after a while, it was going crazy.”

The fish’s weight was officially certified and a state biologist confirmed the catch, officials said.

Dixon and a friend were casting from shore and when he caught the fish, according to For The Win Outdoors. “I barely got it in,” he told the site. “I thought I was going to break the rod, plus ... the river was in crazy spill conditions.”

He donated the catfish to some co-workers “who harvested the fish’s protein-rich fillets,” state officials said.

Dixon, who lives in Elkton, posted on Facebook that the catch capped off “my personal goal of over 300 days of fishing” in 2020.

Flatheads are not native to Maryland’s waters and are blamed for causing “irreversible changes in the food web,” Eregulations.com reports. The species has also been found in the Chesapeake Bay, the Potomac River and Upper Bay areas, the state reports.

The state “asks anglers to remove and kill any ... flathead catfish they catch.”

Maryland Biodiversity Project refers to the species as “invasive apex predators” that are native to the watersheds of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

“Flathead Catfish are ferocious predators that can reach 100 pounds and live at least 20 years,” the project reports. “Imagine how many shad, perch, and other native species a beast like that will eat during a lifetime.”

This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 8:24 AM with the headline "Angler thought he snagged tree in Maryland river. It was a record-sized invasive fish."