I saw,this, and couldn't hep but wonder, "WHY, do we spend what we do, on our gear!??




Thurmond, NC - When a 3-year-old girl was out fishing and needed to head to the bathroom, she handed her hot pink Barbie fishing rod and reel combo to her grandfather ? who used it to haul in a state record channel catfish.
The creature at the center of David Hayes' fish story weighed 21 pounds, 1 ounce, and has now been certified as a record-breaker by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.



The Barbie fishing expedition started in the early evening of Aug. 5 in Wilkes County, as Hayes and his granddaughter Alyssa fished together for bluegill in a farm pond behind his house. They've been doing that since she was big enough to hold a pole.
"After catching two or three bluegill, Alyssa turns to me and says, 'Papa, I've got to go to the bathroom, hold my fishing rod," Hayes said in a press release from the Wildlife Commission. "A few minutes later the float went under and I saw the water start boiling up ? I knew right then that I had my hands full with that fishing rod."



It took him 25 minutes to land the fish. At 22? inches in girth and 32 inches long, the catfish was two inches longer than the fishing rod.
Once he flopped it onto the bank, Hayes figured the fish might be a record breaker and he packed it into a cooler to go get it weighed.
It was about 8:30 p.m. when the hauled it in to Thurmond Grocery, which has a digital scale that's certified annually by the state. The state record until then was an 18-pound, 5-ounce fish caught by Wesley Trucks of New Bern in August 2007.
Ervin Trexler, the assistant store manager, said they got an empty box and weighed it, then put Hayes' catfish in the box, and figured up the difference, as Hayes and Alyssa watched.
They whooped and hollered when they figured up just how heavy that old catfish was.
"Biggest catfish I've ever seen," Trexler said. "He was really happy. He said, 'I can't believe this. I knew it was big, but I didn't know it was this big.'"
He got a chance to see the Barbie rod and reel.
"You've got to know what you're doing, not just anybody can land something that heavy with that small a line," Trexler said.
Alyssa celebrated with an ice cream. Hayes got a soft drink and a pack of crackers.