Wildlife officials monitoring Lake Conroe found a huge lake resident during routine sampling this year. A 52-inch Blue Catfish weighing at least 60 pounds turned up in the gigantic catching device known as a “gill net.”
The fish maxed out the team’s scale, so they couldn’t determine its exact weight. They released the magnificent specimen back into Lake Conroe.
For 10 weeks each spring and autumn, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department places 600-foot gill nets in every Texas coastal bay system. Crews set the nets at sundown and check them an hour after sunrise the next morning.