A new Lake Sinclair record blue catfish was caught about 11:30 a.m.
April 27 by Guy Covington of Social Circle. Covington’s record fish pulled the certified scales at Farmers Services and Hardware in Madison to 79.5 pounds.
“Me and my family went down to stay at Oconee Springs Campground on Lake Sinclair. Little did I know it was gonna be one of the best fishing trips of my life,” Covington said.
Covington participates on the Middle Georgia Catfish Anglers tournament trail, which has an event scheduled May 18 on Lake Sinclair. His G3 Sportsman boat is a special catfish edition that includes an 80-gallon tank.
He typically fishes eight Hellcat rods spooled with 80-lb. test line and 100-lb. leaders and uses a 10/0 hook with only fresh bait.
Earlier in the morning, Covington caught live bream on a hook and line and some big gizzard shad in a cast net. He said he likes to fish heavy cover like big rocks that break the current and give baitfish a place to hide. That attracts the big predator fish, he said.
“The whole left side of my boat was rigged for flatheads with live bream. I tossed a cut bait out to the middle of the channel – this one was probably a 12-inch gizzard shad – the head was bigger than my hand,” Covington recalled.
He said he anchored up in a favorite spot and was there about 15 minutes before one of his reels started peeling drag.
“I grab the rod, but there was nothing I could do. I told my wife, ‘This is a big fish.’ The more and more I felt the fish, I knew it was one of the biggest I had ever caught,” Covington said.
His wife quickly started reeling all the other rods in and Covington said the fish on his line eventually “wore out,” so he was able to start gaining control of it.
“After a long fight, I started to see bubbles coming to the top and that’s when I knew he was close. Then finally this huge catfish comes to the surface and my wife dips the net and gets it. It took both of us to lift it in the boat,” he said. “As soon as I had him in the boat, I knew it could possibly be the lake record.
“My good friend Clay Bishop was fishing down there that day, so I called him for help. It took both of us to get it up to where we could weigh it. It came in at 79.5 pounds. At that point, I knew I had the new lake record.”
However, Covington added with the catch coming on a Saturday there was nowhere nearby to get the fish certified.
Thankfully, however, he was able to drive it to Farmers Hardware in Madison, where a certified scale was made available.
“Big thank you to them and to Brandon Baker, the biologist with the DNR, for making it happen. I am still in shock. Once-in-a-lifetime fish here in Georgia,” Covington declared.
Then, the record-setting catfish was returned and released alive and healthy back into Lake Sinclair.
Covington’s fish broke the previous Lake Sinclair catfish record set by Brandon Pitts in January with a 73-lb, 12.16-oz blue catch. Meanwhile, the Georgia state-record catfish weighed in at 111 pounds when it was caught in 2020 at the upper end of Lake Eufaula on the Chattahoochee River.