Recently, Wesley Cummings was fishing for crappie on Mill Creek at Pickwick Lake using a small pink jig when he set hooks into a fish he wasn’t expecting. Once he pulled his new record yellow perch into his boat, he realized just how big it truly was.

Per state protocols, Cummings’ catch followed all the rules in order to get it certified.

“Catching a yellow perch is rare, so the potential of seeing a new state record was unexpected and exciting,” said Tyler Stubbs, a fisheries biologist with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks in an interview. “I was more than happy to certify the fish for Mr. Cummings,”

Yellow perch are native to the area where the record was caught, but just not in the same numbers as the crappie and bluegill that Cummings was fishing for. Weighing in at whopping 1.46 pounds, it easily beat the old Mississippi state record of 1.13 pounds that had been standing since 2006.

Congrats on the giant Perch Mr. Cummings! Hopefully someday you can get one even bigger!

Author: Brad Smith, Wide Open Spaces