Centerville angler lands 75-pound blue catfish

Borne caught the big cat on a trotline near Lake Fausse Pointe

At least one person was happy after a recent Saints game, but unfortunately for Who Dat Nation, it didn’t have anything at all to do with football.

Ted Borne decided to head out and work a couple of trotlines behind his camp on the Charenton levee near Lake Fausse Pointe after the Saints fell to pieces against the San Francisco 49ers on Nov. 9.

And he ended up making a bigger catch that day than Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham and Brandin Cooks combined when he landed a huge 50-inch, 75-pound blue catfish.

“As soon as I grabbed the line, way on the other side of the canal I could feel him pulling. I could tell something big was on there,” said Borne, 52, who lives in Centerville. “We just had that one that day, but we’ve been catching several big ones prior to that. Every day we’ve been catching a 30- or 40-pounder.”

Had it been caught with a rod and reel, the big catfish would have likely just cracked into the state’s Top 10 at No. 10. (Lawson Boyte reeled in a 114-pounder from the Mississippi River earlier this year and currently has the state’s No. 1-ranked blue cat in the freshwater rod and reel division.)

Borne’s big fish, which had a whopping 30-inch girth, was promptly filleted, but he’s holding on to the head to be mounted and placed in a special spot at his camp.

“I’m going to try to get it mounted like a shoulder mount with just the head and the dorsal fin,” Borne said. “I have him in the freezer and I’m looking for a good taxidermist right now.”

The recent cold weather has dampened the catfish bite some, but Borne will be back working the trotlines, knowing the odds are against him ever catching an even bigger fish.

“He was a monster, probably the biggest catfish I’ll ever catch in my lifetime,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll see one that big again, but you never know.”

About Patrick Bonin 1315 Articles
Patrick Bonin is the former editor of Louisiana Sportsman magazine and LouisianaSportsman.com.