Lucas County fish stories --- smaller and large

Clint Noble, who operated a restaurant on the Chariton square back in 1908, made quite a splash for himself during October of that year and for a few weeks thereafter with a fish story. Reported first in Chariton newspapers, the story was picked up by wire services of the day and published widely as a filler paragraph --- from coast to coast.

It was still circulating in mid-December when the following was published in The Chetopia Clipper of Chetopia, Kansas, on the 16th: "The largest fish ever taken out of the waters of Lucas county, Iowa, was secured by Clint Noble in the Chariton river by shooting it. It was a Mississippi river catfish, and weighed 22 and a half pounds."

It should be noted that the original version of the story, as published in Chariton, set the weight at 24 pounds. Here's the report from The Chariton Herald of Oct. 29: "Last Friday, Clint Noble shot and killed a catfish in the Chariton river that weighed 24 pounds and was 37 inches in length. It was of the channel cat variety and with one or two exceptions was as large a fish as was ever caught in this vicinity."

The Herald also reported, "By actual weight Clint Noble's big fish, recently captured in the Chariton river, was 24 pounds. This was on Sunday.

"Fish stories always grow. On Monday the fish weighed 42 pounds according to the excited narratives of the local fishermen. That fish may yet tip the beam at 240 pounds."

So Clint Noble's fish story actually went the other way and dropped a pound and a half. But whatever the case, it wasn't any sort of record destined to endure. And fishing for catfish with a gun is not looked upon as exactly sporting these days.

For those interested in such things, Iowa' current channel catfish record is held by Dustin Clark who caught a 38.13-pound example in the Missouri River near Sioux City on June 11, 2005.

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But Lucas County still can hold its head high in the catfish record department, and that's what the photograph here is all about.

This monster flathead catfish was taken on June 7, 1958, at Lake Ellis by Joe Baze, at left in the image (his son, Fred, is at right).

This mighty fish weighed in at 81 pounds and still holds the Iowa record in its class. Its mortal remains may be viewed these days at the Lucas County Historical Society Museum in Chariton.