Catfish gives youngster ride of his life
Mikie Webb, 11, shows off the 51-pound catfish he caught by hand Wednesday. The fish was caught at a private pond.
Eleven-year-old Mikie Webb has a fish tale that he likely will have difficulty topping the rest of his life.
When neighbors living across a pond from his family’s place in Union Grove reported spying a huge fish swimming in shallow water Wednesday evening, Mikie didn’t want to take any chances on it getting away.
His father, Jeff Webb, said the youngster went into the pond.
“He’s pretty adventuresome — always has been,” Webb said.
Mikie said he quietly, but quickly, entered the pond and got behind the catfish, slipped his hand and arm through a gill and held on.
He wasn’t expecting what happened next.
“I grabbed it through the gills and it took off and took me under,” Mikie said. “But I held on and wasn’t going to let go.”
Mikie, who will be a sixth grader at Union Grove this fall, weighs in at about 100 pounds.
He said the thought passed through his mind he could drown, but that did not deter him. He knew his older brother, Tyler, 18, was nearby.
“He jumped in and pulled us both out,” Mikie said.
That was no simple task as the fish tipped the scale at 51 pounds.
“We’d been seeing and trying to catch it for about three weeks,” Mikie said. Prior attempts included a traditional rod and reel and even a net — but to no avail.
His father said while Mikie was in chest-deep water when he caught the catfish, the acre-and-a-half stock pond is 12 to 13 feet deep in the center.
“There were several witnesses or no one would probably believe this,” Jeff Webb said.
