“Big Willie” has eluded Mount Vernon fishermen for over 15 years

            by Lisa Hatfield, THG Sports

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. 

“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.

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