Record-setting catch: Local father, son reel in Pennsylvania’s biggest walleye in 41 years

CONNELLSVILLE, Pa. — A Connellsville man and his son caught a state record-setting walleye while fishing along the Youghiogheny River, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission announced Tuesday.

Caught on Oct. 28 by 62-year-old Richard Nicholson and his son, Richard Nicholson, Jr., the fish measured 34 inches with a girth of 21.5 inches. It weighed in at 18 pounds, 1 ounce.

The elder Nicholson recalled his son yelling over to him when something began tugging hard on his fishing line.

“I looked over and the rod had really taken a bend, so I grabbed it and just started reeling,” the elder Nicholson told the PFBC. “I knew right away it was something big, and I thought maybe it was a musky. It fought me for about 25 minutes before I got it up on the bank and my son got it in the net, and we could see it was a walleye. It was so big that it actually broke the net.”

Their walleye broke a 41-year-old record. The previous record was a 17-pound, 9-ounce walleye that was caught in the Allegheny Reservoir in 1980.

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