Barbie Fishing Rod Fish

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Comment by Chet Hayes on October 23, 2008 at 3:47pm

David Hayes is not the kind of guy who usually fishes with a hot pink Barbie doll rod and reel.
But Hayes is also a doting grandfather. And that's how he happened to land a record 21-pound channel catfish with his granddaughter's toy rod and reel.

It all started Aug. 5 in Hayes' backyard in Wilkes County in northwestern North Carolina.

Hayes, 56, and his granddaughter Alyssa, 3, were in his garden when she asked if they could go fishing.

"She loves to fish," Hayes said. "Every day she wants to go."

So the two caught crickets for bait and walked to the dock of his private pond with her rod and reel and her matching hot pink tackle box that her daddy got her for Christmas.

Alyssa hooked the crickets and quickly reeled in two or three small bluegills, Hayes said.

But standing over all that water just makes a girl have to go.

"'Papa, I have to go potty,'" Hayes recalled her saying. She handed her rod to him and ran up to the house.

"The catfish bit just as soon as she got in the house," Hayes said.

As the water started to bubble, he knew he had a biggie.

"Shucks, ain't no way I can hold this," Hayes thought to himself.

The catfish made a few runs, taking the line 30 to 40 yards out and then coming back to the dock. Hayes hung on as Alyssa returned to the pond.

"'Papa, you're going to break my fishing rod,'" Hayes recalled her saying.

"I'm just trying to get it in and at least let her see it," he said.

It took 25 minutes before the catfish unexpectedly gave up the fight. Hayes ran to the edge of the dock with a net and scooped it up.

At 32 inches long, the fish was almost as tall as his granddaughter. It was 2 inches longer than the 2-and-a-half-foot pole.

Hayes has been fishing since he could walk, though he normally uses an open-face spinner with a six-foot rod.

He had bookmarked the state record for channel catfish on his computer: an 18-pound, 5-ounce specimen caught in August 2007. His catch looked bigger.

So Hayes took the fish to the certified scales at Thurmond Grocery in Thurmond, N.C. It weighed 21 pounds, 1 ounce. A fisheries biologist with the state Wildlife Resources Commission certified the record.

Hayes and Alyssa didn't get anything for breaking the state's record. Just bragging rights. And their picture in the paper.

CBS News offered to fly Hayes and Alyssa to New York City for an interview. Hayes isn't going; his wife recently had knee surgery and he figures that being with her is more important than telling fish tales.

But he does plan to have the catfish mounted, along with the pink rod.

He'll buy Alyssa a new one, he said.