The bluegill weighed 2.24 pounds
When Tim Trahan of Arcadia caught a 2.24-pound bluegill on May 30, 2022 he momentarily thought he was hooked into a sheepshead in Houma where he was born and raised.
The bream has unseated the previous Louisiana state record bluegill, which weighed 1.83 pounds and was caught in 2016.
Trahan was fishing in a neighbor’s pond between Shreveport and Monroe. When he took it to nearby K&M Coffee, Corks and Camo in Farmerville, the sporting goods store employees immediately thought it could be a new record.
But one question remained. Was this a true bluegill, or a hybrid? Hybrids are created when bluegills and shellcrackers (a.k.a. redear sunfish) create offspring. Those fish are not eligible for the record book.
Luckily for Trahan, fisheries biologists confirmed the fish was a pure bluegill.
He weighed it twice on two different scales and got two different weights. So he held off on celebrating until the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association certified the weight and officially added him and his catch to the state record book.
Bluegills are among the most common freshwater fish in the United States. They are often an angler’s “first fish” and are plentiful throughout Louisiana’s lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks and even in some brackish waters. They are great table fare and despite their relatively small size, are a lot of fun to catch with light tackle.