Pending brown bullhead record nixed: fish IDed as channel cat
![A pending Washington record brown bullhead caught in September 2011. (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife)](https://thumb.spokesman.com/B-9GTCprLqxDHQNnKn9qLAJ0UnM=/810x0/media.spokesman.com/photos/2011/09/30/Bullhead_record_fish.jpg)
FISHING -- Nice try. Even Washington fish biologists couldn't tell just by looking. But they were skeptical, so they did some tests....
The photo above shows a fish submitted as a potential Washington state record brown bullhead after being caught this fall from Lacamas Lake in Clark County.
The fish was unofficialy weighed at 28.1 pounds, said Joe Hymer, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department fisheries biologist in Vancouver.
But today Hymer reported: "Upon further review…..genetic sampling determined this fish to be a channel catfish. While a nice size fish, the state record channel catfish weighed 36.20 pounds, caught by Ross Kincaid in I-82 Pond #6 of Yakima County on Sept,. 6, 1999."
The current state record bullhead is 11.04 pounds caught in an unnamed lake in Snohomish County in 2000. Typical size bullheads would be a mere appetizer for this lunker.