ROCKBRIDGE, Va. – A Sunday afternoon fishing trip led to a record-breaking catch from one Rockbridge man.
Jerry Hall was spending his afternoon fishing for trout along Cowpasture River in Bath County when a particularly heavy fallfish hit his Joe’s fly on March 21, according to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR).
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The next thing he knew, he caught a fallfish that weighed 3 pounds, 5 ounces and was 19.75 inches in length.
Hall said he normally catches and releases the fish, but he had an inkling he had a record-breaking catch.
“I know what a 3-pound fish looks like and feels like. I thought I’d seen that the state record fallfish was a bit over 2 pounds. I knew this fish was well over 3 pounds. So, I brought it out on the notion that it was a state record,” Hall said.
After a 20-minute walk from the river to his truck, he was able to weigh it and knew he had to get it certified.
DWR Region 4 Fisheries Manager Steve Reeser certified the fish’s weight and confirmed it as the new state record. This fallfish was 13 ounces bigger than the previous state record fallfish recorded in 2020.
“It’s an extraordinarily large fallfish; I’ve fished a lot in my life and I’ve never caught one close to it before,” Hall said. “It set the bar high, but I think that record can be beaten!”
Click here to learn more about this new state record.