RAVENSWOOD, W.Va. — When Tyler Harmon decided on the spur of the moment to take his son fishing on the Ohio River, he called his father on the way to the boat ramp and invited him along.
Within about 20 minutes of setting up to fish, three generations of the Harmon family were sharing a boat with what would be certified as the heaviest blue catfish ever recorded in West Virginia.
The 72.75-pound fish, caught Aug. 29 near Ravenswood in Jackson County, measured 48.15 inches long and broke a state weight record that had stood for less than four months. The W.Va. Division of Natural Resources announced the record Friday after it was certified by state fish culturist Ryan Bosserman. Harmon caught the fish on cut bait using 40-pound-test line.
The catch is the latest in a series of increasingly large blue catfish recorded since West Virginia began returning the native species to waters where it had disappeared, according to Paul Johansen, chief of the division’s wildlife resources section.
“In the early 2000s, the WVDNR began restoring blue catfish in the Ohio and Kanawha rivers,” Johansen said. “The fishery continues to grow, producing multiple state records over the last several years. Not only did these efforts restore a native fish species, but they also created opportunities for anglers to catch really big fish.”
West Virginia’s blue catfish record keeps climbing
Harmon’s record is particularly notable because another Jackson County angler set the previous weight record in May. Michael Ramey of Poca caught a 71-pound, 50.23-inch blue catfish on May 9 while fishing the Ohio River, surpassing the 69.45-pound record set by Michael John Drake in 2023.
The record has been climbing rapidly, part of a broader trend of record-breaking fish in West Virginia. Cody Carver caught a 61.28-pound blue catfish in the Kanawha River in April 2022, breaking the 59.74-pound record Mark Blauvelt had held since 2016. Seven weeks later, Steven Price raised the record again with a 67.22-pound fish from the lower Kanawha River.
Drake moved the weight record to the Ohio River in December 2023 when he caught a 69.45-pound blue catfish from the R.C. Byrd Pool near Gallipolis. Ramey pushed it past 70 pounds this spring, and Harmon has now added another 1.75 pounds. Over the past decade, West Virginia’s blue catfish weight record has increased by more than 13 pounds, with some of the largest catches alternating between the Kanawha and Ohio rivers.
Blue catfish returned after disappearing from West Virginia
That progression is particularly significant because blue catfish had disappeared from West Virginia waters before the DNR began restocking them in 2004. The agency says improvements in water quality in the Ohio River drainage helped make their return possible, and its restoration history notes that state records began falling repeatedly as the fishery developed.
Blue catfish are the largest catfish species in North America and can reach sizes well beyond those yet documented in West Virginia. The world-record fish weighed 143 pounds and measured 57 inches when it was caught in Virginia’s John H. Kerr Reservoir, also known as Buggs Island Lake, in 2011.
By 2014, the state record had reached 52.95 pounds with an Ohio River fish caught near Apple Grove.
The difference between that fish and West Virginia’s record leaves considerable room for the state’s record to climb as its restored fishery continues to develop, though whether West Virginia will eventually produce a blue cat approaching 100 pounds remains unknown.
Three generations were there for the record catch
Harmon’s encounter with one of West Virginia’s largest fish began far more casually.
“Just got that itch to go fishing,” Harmon told WTAP-TV in Parkersburg after the catch.
He asked his son if he wanted to take the boat out and called his father as he headed toward the ramp. Harmon told the station that sharing what followed with both of them was as important as the record itself.
“It was great,” Harmon said. “Having three generations on the boat. Watching my son and my dad react to the size of the fish. It’s just amazing.”
According to WTAP, the fish had a girth of 33.5 inches, and Harmon released it alive into the Ohio River after measuring it.
Although Harmon’s fish is now the heaviest blue catfish recorded in West Virginia, it isn’t the longest. That record belongs to Justin Connor of Milton, who caught a 51.49-inch, 66.3-pound blue catfish from the Kanawha River in Putnam County on May 9, 2025. West Virginia recognizes separate state records for fish length and weight.
The comparison illustrates how massive Harmon’s fish was. It measured more than three inches shorter than Connor’s length-record fish but weighed more than six pounds more.
For the division, the latest record marks another milestone in an effort that began more than 20 years ago with the return of a native fish that had vanished from West Virginia waters. For Harmon, it resulted from an unplanned fishing trip that put his father, his son, and a record-setting fish together in the same boat.
The fish that established West Virginia’s new 72.75-pound benchmark was released alive and is back in the Ohio River.