FishRook
Art Weston and his guide Capt. Kirk Kirkland were out chasing world records again in early April. This time, the accomplished anglers were fishing for a new world-record alligator gar at the upper end of Sam Rayburn Lake in East Texas. Weston and Kirkland accomplished their mission, and in the process, they caught something even bigger: an enormous snapping turtle that weighed around 200 pounds.
Kirkland tells Outdoor Life that they’d hooked and lost several potential records during the morning of April 6. They were shooting for a line-class record, which means they had to land a giant alligator gar on 4-pound test line in order for it to be considered as a new world record by the International Game Fish Association.
Kirkland says they battled one fish for around 90 minutes that morning before losing it in some flooded timber near the mouth of the Angelina River. Soon after, Weston inadvertently hooked a beast of an alligator snapping turtle that looked like some…
