Is America's founding river primed to give Big Muddy a run for its money?
That's the question we're left to contemplate after the news that Tim Wilson and Danny Ayers, two cousins from Rockbridge County, hauled a 102-pound, 4-ounce blue catfish from the tidal James River near Dutch Gap on May 20. That fish will soon be certified as the state record, besting the mark set by Archie Gold - 95 pounds, 11 ounces - in June, 2006.
So is the James ready to overtake the mighty Mississippi as the home of the world-record blue cat, a 124-pounder caught by Tim Pruitt in May 2005 in Illinois waters?
That would have been a ridiculous question to ask 10 years ago, when 60 pounds was about the biggest blue catfish the James had to offer. It's not anymore. It could be only a matter of time - and maybe not much time - before the James becomes the gold standard for anglers pursuing the world's biggest blues.
In some ways, Bob Greenlee, fisheries biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, was surprised it took this long to break the 100-pound mark. The recent trend, he said, has been for the upper end of weights to go up about 10 pounds every three years.
By that measure, Ayers' and Wilson's catch wasn't far off schedule.
"All blue catfish are the same in their growth," he said. "Real slow growth until about age 8. They're kind of foraging around the bottom, getting whatever they can. But at about age 8, some of the fish figure out how to go out and become piscivores. By age 10, they average about 10 pounds. By 11, they're 20 pounds. By 12, they're 30 pounds."
The DGIF has sampled the blue catfish population in the James and other state rivers for years.
"What we look for is a beginning in the decline of growth rate," Greenlee said. "That's what happened on the Pamunkey River and it's likely what happened on the Rappahannock. [On the James River] that upper end is increasing. The larger fish are becoming more numerous. There's no real significant decline in growth rate."
Translation: "There's nothing right now in the data that would indicate that it's not possible to break a world record. There's nothing that's preventing it."
The James already is known nationwide for its big blue cats. Catfishing guide Mike Ostrander, who once put me on a 66-pounder, gets regular business from anglers as far away as Kansas. But a world record pulled out of the water would immediately turn the James into the premier catfishing destination in the United States.
"It would give a massive amount of spotlight to the river," said Ostrander, who thinks the world record is a distinct possibility. "A lot more people would spend money to fly and drive to the river. It might solidify it as the No.1 catfish fishery in the nation. It would probably change a lot of minds."
And if you believe in such things, there's karma to consider.
Wilson and Ayers were adamant that the fish they caught would survive its journey to be weighed and measured.
"Our first priority was the fish itself," Wilson said. "In no uncertain terms was that fish going to die. If we had to put him back, that's what we would have did."
They were aided by Greenlee, whose truck has a 150-gallon tank that pumps oxygen into the water. After the fish was officially catalogued at Green Top Sporting Goods, Greenlee returned it to its watery home near the Deep Bottom Boat landing.
Pruitt's catch, on the other hand, died in transit to an aquarium at a local Cabela's store.
And there's one last reason to think that someday in the not-so-distant-future an angler on the James will net a blue catfish north of 125 pounds and set the catfishing world a buzz: Pruitt's 124-pounder broke the Mississippi River record by 39 pounds.
Do the math with the James River record and you have one giant thrashing blue monster that would make a 124-pounder look like its kid sister.
Contact Andy Thompson at (804) 649-6579 or outdoors@timesdispatch.com.
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