Catching 92-pound catfish like a 'circus' for local angler [View all]

Joshua Gay described reeling in a 92-pound blue catfish at night on Old Hickory Lake recently as a circus.

It involved a girlfriend, who was supposed to hold the net and help get the fish in the boat but instead flipped out temporarily, a buddy who never had catfished before and pleaded with Gay not to bring the gargantuan creature into the boat, and a flurry of other lines that got tangled up as the fish dislodged the anchor and pulled the vessel around during the fight.

"We had four other lines out and she turned the boat around and got those lines all wrapped around each other," said Gay, an avid Hendersonville angler who hooked the fish about 10 p.m. using cut shad. "The fight went on about 40 minutes, and there was one point where I had my buddy (Justin Bliss) hold the rod and I ended up taking my knife and cutting the other lines loose. They were a mess."

Gay, 34, a pharmacy technician, has caught catfish that weighed as much as 50 pounds in Old Hickory, and his girlfriend, Natalie Hatcher, had helped get them into the boat by using a net. But she bailed out on this battle.

Read more: http://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/2016/12/21/catching-catfish-like-circus/95662818/