“Big
Willie” has eluded Mount Vernon fishermen for over 15 years
by Lisa
Hatfield, THG Sports
Stan
Spencer
On a breezy Saturday in
late-September, 1989, Stan Spencer and his son Bill went down to their camp on
the Ohio River five miles west of Mount Vernon to do what they did every
Saturday afternoon: drink a few beers and fish off of their pontoon boat.
The only difference between
this Saturday and all of the others they had previously spent on the mighty Ohio
was a sight so awesome it would define the angler’s lives for the next 15 years
and counting.
This was the day they first
encountered the largest catfish they had ever seen, a giant bluecat they have
nicknamed “Big Willie” after Stan’s favorite singer, Willie Nelson.
Bill had hooked the fish
and almost had him in the boat when his line snapped. Stan estimated the fish
to be around a hundred pounds back on that fateful day.
Every weekend since, the
Spencers have spent their Saturdays on the river, trying to catch what they say
would be an Indiana record blue catfish (the largest bluecat ever caught in
Indiana was 104 lbs. in 1999 by Bruce Midkiff). Even though they haven’t seen
him this year, they believe Big Willie is still out there, and now weighs in the
neighborhood of 180-200 pounds.
They have had Big Willie
hooked several times over the years, but every time, the mammoth fish has broken
their line before they could get him in the boat, despite the Spencers using
heavier and heavier test in their attempts to land the big one.
Bill
Spencer
“We have tried just about
everything to haul in Big Willie, but he is so big and strong it is darn near
impossible to reel him in,” said Bill, a mechanic by trade.
If the Spencers ever do
catch Big Willie, they say they just want to get a picture with him and release
him. “I wouldn’t keep him. He is probably too polluted to eat, and a fish that
big and old deserves to be left in the wild. If anyone else gets lucky and
catches him, I hope they turn him loose. He is almost like part of my family
after all of these years,” says Stan.
