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Originally Posted by BradleyPrejean87
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That's the fly fishing record for a gafftop at 6.24 lbs.
The all tackle record has four entries that are heavier than this fish, including a fish that was caught on my boat in 2013, coming in at third place at 6.67 lbs. We've caught some gafftops that were bigger, but since we already have 3 of the top 10 spots in the state records, we're not inclined to jump through all the hoops to get every top 10 fish recorded. The 1st place fish is 11.06 lbs. If we get one that takes the top spot, we'll go out of our way to find a certified scale, get the weighing witnessed on the appropriate form, get the fish identified on the form by a LDWF biologist, take the required photos and submit the application.
The top ten black drum are all over 60 lbs, and the top ten redfish are all over 48 lbs.
Most anglers are a bit high in their eyeball estimates of weight. A 10 lb gafftop is a huge specimen. Likewise, most black drum eyeballed at "40 lbs" are really 20-30 lb fish. We've weighed and measured thousands of fish. The biggest black drum in our data was around 33 lbs. The biggest gafftop was 7.7 lbs. The biggest redfish was near 29 lbs.
It's good to see the gafftop getting some love as the fish of the year in the flyfishing category. Catching fish on the fly certainly is more challenging than soaking bait.