Satilla River Flathead Record Broken After 11 Years

On Oct. 10, Larry Linker, of Woodbine, caught a Satilla River flathead catfish that weighed 45-lbs.,15-ozs, breaking his own previous river record, according to GON’s official Lake & River Records.

On that Wednesday afternoon, Larry set out to go fishing in his usual spot on the river. He prefers fishing an area of the river with a lot of structure because DNR can’t easily get their shocking boats to those areas. DNR regularly removes flathead catfish from the Satilla River because they are considered non-native to the river system and are harmful to native fish populations.

Larry was using a big saltwater reel and a heavy-duty rod, the same outfit he uses when he hunts gators. He elected to use live bait, and quickly found himself hooked up with the river record.

“It is just unreal how much power they have,” said Larry. “You can hardly control them. It took me about 10 minutes to struggle with the fish and pull him up out of the water,” said Larry.

“You have to use heavy-duty gear when it comes to catfish this big because they’ll wrap around the structure and break a regular fishing line.”

Larry’s fish was taken to the WRD Fisheries office. After being verified and certified, it became official that he beat his previous Satilla River flathead catfish record of 36 pounds, which he caught on April 9, 2007. After 11 years, Larry breaks his own record.

Click here to see more Satilla River records.