“There is a saying all fisherman are liars besides you and me, and I'm not real sure about you.”

Anyone who knows a regular fisherman knows they claim to at some point have caught a monster fish. Of course, they lack proof because there is no picture, the fish fell out of the boat, of Nessie came up and snagged it out of the boat on the way back to shore.

Keith Baker, 36 from Uniontown, has a big fish story. Unlike most fisherman, he has plenty of proof. There are pictures, eye witnesses, and possibly a certificate in the future confirming that he caught the biggest cat fish on a 10-pound line in the state of Ohio.

His fish tale began a few weekends back when Baker entered a bass tournament held at the Portage Lakes to raise money for children. It was supposed to be a two-man tournament, but Baker's partner was unable to come.

Going solo did not slow Baker, who was doing well when he stopped at his favorite spot on the lake. Using an artificial lure, Baker was hoping to catch a three-to-four pound bass.

What snagged his line was just a little bit bigger.

“I get this huge tug, it pulls off a lot of ton of line,” Baker said. “I was pretty sure it was a fish, but after awhile I was second guessing myself.”

Baker battled it for 45 minutes, thinking he caught a muskie or carp. Around that time he caught a flash of the tail, and decided to keep fighting it. An hour and 20 minutes into the battle, he saw it again, but was still unclear what the fish was or just how big it might be.

Deciding to shove his net in the water to see if he could just yank the fish out of water, Baker found himself ill-equipped.

“I shoved the net as far in I could, but it only got to his eyes,” he said. “There was still 30 to 40 inches. It did a head stand, so I put the tail over my shoulder and threw it into the boat and dropped my fishing line.”

Weighing down his boat was a massive catfish, twice the size of any fish Baker said to have ever seen. It would not fit in any of his storage containers, and his camera phone was broken. So Baker, a conversationalist, decided to fill the boat with water to keep the fish alive as he headed back to the boat master.

The boat master had a 150-gallon tank, so when he returned to shore they put the fish in the tub. What did Baker do then?

Go back out and fish some more of course.

Although Baker did not win the tournament, he stole the show with the catch. The officials did not have a scale large enough for the fish, so Baker had his wife Jessica bring one from home, and brought both of his daughters to come see the fish.

“When Keith called me and told me that he'd caught a huge catfish, I had a mental image of a long, skinny grey catfish,” Jessica said. “When I first caught sight of that beast I was completely shocked.  The catfish looked like he was big enough to swallow one of my kids in one gulp!  I decided that I would probably NOT be swimming in Portage Lakes ever again.”

The fish weighed in at 57 pounds, 12.4 ounces. It was 49.5” inches long and had a 34” girth. Baker said it was bigger than both of his daughters.

The 70 to 80 fisherman in the tournament saw it, they took pictures, and then released it back into the lake. Baker said the decision to throw his big catch back was not a hard one.

“We released it back, so maybe someday my kids can catch it,” he said. “It was in the prime of its life, it had no parasites. I checked my resources, it was by far the biggest fish caught in the lake, or at least until someone else catches the old fellow.”

He said the thought of mounting the monster on his wall crossed his mind for half a minute, but he knew he should return it. Baker said he has not kept a fish in six to eight years.

As for the record, Baker will have to wait about a month and a half before the record is considered official. The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) needed part of his line and samples of the rest of his equipment to confirm he caught the fish on the line class Baker said he did. The IGFA has records for every state in every fish in different classes of rods. This record would break the 10-pound and 20-pound line records, both of which are currently around 34 pounds.

Matt Wolf, Division of Wild Life's Biologist for Summit County, was shocked when he heard just how big of a fish was caught in the Portage Lakes.   

“Wow,” Wolf said. “I originally thought he caught it in another lake. I, at first, gave him a bug-eye look. In the Portage Lakes, you don't see a fish that big very often. Now we get some other lakes like Mosquito Reservoir, Tappan Reservoir, Clending Reservoir - those are our big flat head lakes. I wouldn't put the Portage Lakes in the top 20, but he found a jewel in there to say the least.”

Wolf was also pleased that Baker released the fish with it being in perfect condition.
Baker is satisfied with the fact he can tell his big fish tale and know that people have to believe him.

“I got the picture, that's all I needed,” Baker said. “All my family and my peers got to see it. He is the top predator in the lake, that eats anything in the lake. That fact that we have at least one here (that big) is amazing.”

The Portage Lakes now has two records to its name, as the state record muskie was also caught there in the 1980s. It is considered one of the best places for bass  besides Lake Erie.

Baker manages to fish about 100 days a year, and has fished in Pennsylvania, New York and Texas, but he has never seen a fish quite like that. When he isn't relieving stress out on the lake, he takes care of his own business, Hartville Heating. For information call 330-699-9594, and while he is out at your house, you might just be lucky enough to hear his tale in person.