59-pounder caught in Irvine Lake is a state record, officials say : Big Catfish Has Him Feline Fine

It’s big, it’s tough and it’s ugly. But the slimy fish now stuffed in a cooler at Irvine Lake makes Hatsady Pravongviengkham grin. At four feet long and 59-plus pounds, the blue catfish he reeled in Sunday night is the largest ever caught in California, Fish and Game officials say.

The previous state record for a blue catfish was set in 1977 when a 36-pound, 13-ounce fish was caught in Jennings Lake in San Diego County, according to Chuck Marshall, associate fisheries biologist for the state Fish and Game Department. Last year, a 58 1/2-pound blue catfish was pulled in at Irvine Lake but never officially entered in the records, Marshall added.

A 60-pounder was recently hit by a boat at the private lake near Orange, said Greg Elliott, operations officer for Outdoor Safari, International, which leases the lake from the Irvine Co. and operates fishing and boating.

He Stands to Win $700 Prize

Pravongviengkham, a Laotian production worker, will win $700 in prize money offered in a catfish-fishing contest by a bait company. He met the contest deadline by 15 minutes.

“The thing is, I’m lucky. I have no secret,” said Pravongviengkham, 35, of Santa Ana. He used a 17-pound test line from shore. “I pull it, it try to go away. I let it go. When it get tired, I just bring it back real easily. Back and forth. Back and forth.”

The 120-pound Pravongviengkham finally pulled the fish in at 10:45 p.m. after an hour’s battle and drove it to the bait shop to be weighed.

“You should have seen him when he drove up,” said Wayne Halldorson, night manager. “He honked his horn and jumped this high!” he said, holding his hand at shoulder height.

It was agreed that the fish would break the lake’s 32-pound scales, so it was packed in ice and weighed Monday morning at the Irvine Ranch Farmer’s Market meat department in Orange.

Pravongviengkham usually fishes at Irvine Lake for food for an extended family of 11, including his wife and 4-year-old son, Jimmy. “It’s a very good taste. No small bones,” he said. He either fries the filets or dries chunks of meat before frying them, he said.

Before Sunday, the largest catfish he ever caught was 15 pounds. “About 20 people could eat all this,” he said looking at the bewhiskered fish.

Too Tough to Eat?

But since the fish has probably been living at the bottom of the lake for 17 years, it is too tough to eat, Halldorson said. “And so damn ugly, they’re no good to mount,” added Leonard Mayhew, manager of operations at Santa Ana River Lakes in Anaheim.

Of all the species of catfish--including white, bullheads, flathead and channel--the blues are the largest on record in California, said Marshall of Fish and Game. The world’s largest recorded blue catfish was a 97-pounder landed in 1959 in South Dakota, he said.

Outside of San Diego County, Irvine Lake is the only lake known to stock blue catfish in California, Marshall said.

Several years ago, divers in the lake said they were frightened by the sight of human-size catfish on the bottom of the lake, according to Halldorson.

Pravongviengkham’s catfish is probably one of about 4,000 stocked in the private lake in 1970 and ‘71, Elliott said. Other channel-blue hybrids, whose growth rate is uncertain, have also been stocked at the lake, he added.

The catfish, apparently happy with the Irvine Lake ecosystem, are getting bigger each year, Elliott said. Catfish are predators and eat just about anything, even other catfish, he said.

Other Records Seen

“In five or 10 years, we might be breaking all kinds of records around here,” Elliott said.

In addition to the Irvine Lake prize, makers of Catchit bait offered $700 for the largest catfish caught at Santa Ana River Lakes and Corona Lake. Other winners were Bud Lamb of Corona who brought in a 15-pound, 12-ounce fish from Corona Lake and Bill Shadduck of Tustin who caught a 20-pound, 4-ounce fish at Santa Ana River Lakes.

Pravongviengkham hopes the sponsors will pay to mount his catch since he says he cannot afford it.

He plans to use his prize money first to pay bills, he said, then to buy new fishing equipment.