One Saturday evening in early May, Dylan Kampnich and his son Kaden went bullhead fishing on Lake Ontario’s Black River Bay marsh near their Pillar Point home.
At the ripe old age of 4, Kaden was already a seasoned angler, but little did he know that he’d be making history with his dad that day.
Tagging along were Kampnich’s fiancé and baby daughter.
“They normally never go with us,” Kampnich said. “It’s usually just a son and father thing. But my daughter needed a nap, so I threw her in the car seat.”
It was beautiful spring evening for shore fishing on May 3. The air was soft, the bullheads were biting, and the baby was asleep.
As he and Kaden hammered the bullheads, Kampnich thought about a conversation he had earlier that week with state biologists who’d netted a 40-inch, 39-lb channel catfish in the bay while surveying for sturgeon.
Just for kicks, Kampnich began targeting catfish, using the same bullhead set up: pre-knotted hook baited with a worm, two-ounce sinker, and 20-lb braid on the reel.
Within minutes he landed a 32-inch, 15-lb catfish, his personal best. He FaceTimed his fiance’s father to share the good news when his pole bent over like a willow branch.
“You got a fish or a snag?” His fiance’s father said.
“I got a fish!” Kampnich shouted.
The fight lasted less than 10 minutes. But this catfish didn’t peel line off his reel like the 15-pounder did moments before.
It was too big, like a submarine in a kiddie pool with no room to maneuver.
“It’s all sandbar going into the marsh and it’s not deep,” Kampnich said. “So you’re not fighting the fish up and down. You’re basically pulling it straight in. I’m just sitting there and letting it literally wind my reel out.”
Kampnich works construction. He knows what it feels like to haul an 80-pound bundle of roofing shingles up a ladder. As he got measurements on the catfish— 40 inches long with a 27-inch girth — he marveled at how heavy it felt in his hands.
He thought it might be close to the state record channel catfish, caught almost exactly three years ago in almost the exact same place.
That fat cat weighed 35 lb, 12 oz.
But Kampnich had a problem. He couldn’t find a scale to weigh his fish. So he raced to the Watertown Walmart and bought one of every model of fishing scale on the shelf.
The fish weighed between 35-36 pounds on all of them — a potential state record.
But the closest certified scale was at Thousand Island Bait Store in Alexandria Bay, and it was closed.
Kampnich secured the colossal catfish overnight on a stringer and set it in a makeshift live well made of stones in the shallows.
On Sunday morning, he slid the catfish into a tote filled with water and taped two battery-powered ice fishing aerators inside it to keep it alive.
The first time Kampnich put the fish on the certified scale at Thousand Island Bait Store, it weighed a little more than 38 pounds.
When he later weighed it again for the Department of Environmental Conservation, the fish was 37 pounds, 9 ounces, a bit less but still beating the state record by nearly two pounds.
Last week DEC sent Kampnich a letter certifying his fish as an official state record and giving him unofficial bragging rights.
He’s already joked to his fishing buddies to not treat him any different now that he’s a state record holder.
The best part of catching — and releasing — the catfish for Kampnich was having his family with him.
“The luck that day was just immaculate,” he said, “a nice memory for my son.”
Now Kaden wants to go fishing every spare moment, Kampnich said. And every time they drive by people standing on shore, Kaden asks if they’re fishing.
“Yep,” Kampnich tells his son with hint of pride in his voice, “but it might take them a while to catch one bigger than ours, buddy.”