Iowa Man Catches Huge Flathead Catfish While Ice Fishing 
US Source: khak 2/27/2022
Iowa Man Catches Huge Flathead Catfish While Ice Fishing
Apparently, some Iowans must cut holes in the ice with an auger the size of something you'd put up to a grain bin. I know a grain auger is very different from an ice auger, but this guy had to be using a big one. Otherwise, there's no way he'd have been able to pull this huge fish through the ice, to the fishing promised land.

The fisherman's name is Gavin Campbell. He pulled that giant lunker to the top of the ice while fishing at Lake Manawa in western Iowa. The lake in Council Bluffs was formed when the Missouri River flooded in 1881. 81. Remember that number.

According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Campbell's flathead catfish in the photo below measured 40-inches long and weighed 34 pounds.
 

While that's a very impressive flathead catfish, it is small in comparison to the biggest one on record in the state of Iowa. We have to go back a long way to find the record holder. That's this fish caught in Ellis Lake in Lucas County in south-central Iowa. Joe Baze (on the left below) caught this 52-inch flathead in 1958. It weighed a whopping 81 pounds!

 
Lake Manawa Catfish, Flathead Continue...