Tim Trahan of Arcadia, Louisiana, was fishing his neighbor’s pond when he hooked a better-than-average freshwater panfish. The 65-year-old had no idea what he’d hooked until he landed the oversized fish.
“Actually, I was amazed by the size of it,” Trahan, a retired welder, told the Houma Courier. “I thought I was back at home fishing for [saltwater] sheephead.”
Trahan is a native of Houma, on the coast in South Louisiana, where marine sheepshead are bream-like in shape, but much larger and stronger than the average freshwater sunfish. Now he lives east of Shreveport, where he chiefly fishes freshwater for bream and other species.
Bluegills and other bream commonly weigh just 6 to 12 ounces, and a 1-pound fish is considered huge. But Trahan’s catch officially weighed 2.24 pounds on certified scales at K&M Coffee, Corks and Camo in Farmerville.
“It was huge, the only question was if it was a true bluegill or if it was a hybrid,” said K&M owner…