A Tennessee angler fishing Lake Barkley this past weekend caught Kentucky’s new state record yellow perch.
Lynn Bumgardner’s fish weighed 1.58 pounds on a certified scale, eclipsing the old record of 1.44 pounds set in 2010. Hailing from Oliver Springs, Tennessee, he caught his fish on the Trigg County side of the lake March 2.
Bumgardner said he was trolling grubs for crappie on Linton Bay in Lake Barkley when this snag came along, and that when he caught this one, he knew “immediately, it was a heavy fish.”
A television actor by trade, he was fishing with old friend Lee Andrews, who serves as Kentucky field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Bumgardner said the pair were about to call it a day when the perch landed on the line.
Bumgardner added that the fish rolled over, and he saw a great big belly with the stripes, and knew then it was a perch. In the moment, he told Andrews: “I’ve caught the new state record yellow perch.” He didn’t know if it really was, but it was the largest he’d ever seen.
Andrews referenced the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife website on his phone, and right away realized this fish weight more. After checking on a hand-held digital scale, it weighed 1 pound, 9 1/8 ounces.
The pair took the fish to the Food Giant grocery story in Cadiz and had it weight on a certified scale, a requirement to confirm state record status. The fish was 14 and ¼ inches, and it weighed in at 1.58 pounds, a bit less than the weight recorded by the hand-held digital scale — but still, a record.
Andrews and Bumgardner have fished together since their teenage years, and found a second wind this past weekend after their big catch. They snagged one more crappie after the perch.
For more information on Kentucky state record fish, visit the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife website at fw.ky.gov.
