State record cat pulled from James

For 20 years, Tim Wilson has been driving from Natural Bridge Station to the Richmond area to fish the James River for blue catfish.

He could stay home and fish the upper James for smallmouth bass, but "I just love big fish," he said. "When we started fishing down there, if you caught a 20-pounder, you caught a big fish."

On Wednesday, Wilson, 51, and cousin Danny Ayers, using cut shad as bait, caught the biggest blue cat in Virginia history -- a 102-pound, 4-ounce behemoth. Once officially certified, it will surpass the previous record of 95 pounds, 11 ounces set by Archie Gold in June 2006. The world record 124-pound blue catfish was caught on the Mississippi River in May 2005.

Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologist Bob Greenlee, who assisted with the weigh-in at Green Top Sporting Goods yesterday, said certification should happen quickly.

"It has to go through the process. That's not complete yet, but there's no doubt that it will be certified," Greenlee said. "This breaks the old [record] by a long shot."

There's just one catch: Wilson is adamant that he and Ayers shared the effort of boating the fish, and he'd like to see them recognized as co-record-holders.

Greenlee said that while the wording in the regulations does not prohibit more than one angler from aiding in a catch, there is no precedent for multiple record-holders. Still, he was sympathetic to Wilson and Ayers' plea.

"We've always had an individual record-holder up to this point, but with a 102-pound fish, it takes two people to wrestle it into the boat," Greenlee said.

DGIF spokeswoman Julia Dixon said once the process is complete, based on the descriptions Wilson and Ayers gave of the catch, it's likely Wilson will be recognized as the primary angler and sole record-holder.

Wilson and Ayers were fishing in the Dutch Gap area around 12:45 p.m. Wednesday when one of five rods with lines in the water went down. Fifteen minutes later, the beast was on board. It measured 52¾ inches.

"The water was so brown we didn't know what we had until he was right up by the side of the boat," Wilson said. "It's just amazing that anybody could experience something like this in their lifetime."