Larry Westmoreland has caught plenty of fish in his 70 years, but he’ll be hard pressed to top the one he reeled in Saturday night while fishing at Lake Keowee.

“It took me a long time to learn to fish for the big fish,” Westmoreland said.

Apparently Westmoreland has it figured out.

“I’ve caught a lot of catfish in the 45-pound range,” Westmoreland said.

That's impressive enough, but his catch Saturday night was nearly twice that.

Westmoreland, of Walhalla, had been fishing for about two hours when he finally enticed a big blue catfish to fall for his “special bait.”

“I knew it was a pretty big one,” he said. “It felt like I had a big stump on my line.”

After a 20-minute battle, Westmoreland finally reeled the big cat alongside his 16-foot jon boat, which was when the biggest challenge began to unfold.

“Getting him to the boat wasn’t any problem,” Westmoreland said. “Getting him over into the boat was the problem.”

Westmoreland was able to get the majority of the 49-inch-long fish into his net, but it took several attempts to actually get the fish into the boat.

“I tried to pick him up a bunch of times, but just couldn’t do it,” Westmoreland said. “The last time I came up with him I still couldn’t get him, but was finally able to drag him over (the side of the boat).”

Westmoreland fished on for about an hour, hoping for another big bite, then decided it was time to go home.

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“I wish I had weighed him right away, but we didn’t weigh him until after church on Sunday,” Westmoreland said.

His catch tipped the scales at 89 pounds – 49 pounds more than his previous biggest catfish at Lake Keowee and ranks as the largest reported catch ever at the 18,500-acre, clear-water reservoir. Westmoreland's son, Lee, went with him to weigh the fish on certified scales.

“I think my two sons (Lee and Tony) were more thrilled than I was,” Westmoreland said.

His catch fell nearly 25 pounds shy of matching the state record for the species – a 113-pound, 8-ounce fish landed by Liberty’s Paula Haney at Lake Moultrie in 2017 – but there are plenty of fish fries in the family’s future.

“I got a bunch of fillets out of it,” he said.