Mike Bruns wasn’t certain what he’d catch when he drifted a 3-inch-long sucker through a private lake not far from his Arvada home.
But he did expect it to be big.
Bruns was only mildly surprised when he pulled out a channel catfish that weighed 32 pounds, 4 ounces and might have bettered the stare record of 33-8 had his luck locating a certified scale been as good as at fishing.
He first took it to two separate grocery stores, only to find their scales measured only 30 pounds, insufficient for the task. Finally, a butcher’s scale delivered the official news.
“I carried it around a long time and it lost some weight. I thought I had the record,” said Bruns, who landed a 26-pounder at the same spot last year.
Bruns, who used 17-pound-test to subdue the lunker, released it into the same lake and watched it swim away.
“They’re tough fish,” he declared.
