Angler’s bull bream, a 2.24-pound bluegill, takes over first place in state record book
Published 12:15 am Sunday, August 14, 2022
- Tim Trahan of Arcadia, formerly of Houma, shows the 2.42-pound bull bream after weighing it May 30 at K&M Coffee, Corks and Camo in Farmerville.
Normally, they’re called bull bream, the big bluegill we catch in and around the Atchafalaya Basin, or in ponds, rivers and lakes across the Sportsman’s Paradise.
On May 30, Tim Trahan of Arcadia, east of Shreveport, hooked and reeled in a bluegill that could be called a Brahma bull bream while fishing a pond on his neighbor’s property. It wasn’t the typical hand-sized bream.
Trahan, a Houma native who fished saltwater species before moving to northeast Louisiana in 2019, said he was “amazed” by the size of his catch.
In fact, he said in a story posted Aug. 7 on houmatoday.com, website of the Houma Courier, “I thought I was back at home fishing for sheephead.”
What Trahan had in his hands was a 2.24-pound bream that recently was declared a new state record in the private-pond division by the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association. The previous private-pond state record was a 1.72-pounder caught in a subdivision pond by Dwaine Payne. (The public-waters record is a 1.83-pounder caught by Timothy Delaney of Alexandria in May 2016 during an evening trip at Lake Iatt with his wife, Mickie.)
Trahan, 65, a retired welder and fitter, has had the bream mounted by a taxidermist and plenty of memories from that exciting but fairly hectic day. He tried to weigh it on several scales but got different readings before he took it to K&M Coffee, Corks and Camo in Farmerville.
The Terrebonne High graduate (Class of 2019) waited for a state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Division agent to witness and certify the weight on the certified digital scale at the store. The information was submitted and eventually certified by the LOWA.
“It was huge. The only question was if it was a true bluegill or if it was a hybrid,” K&M owner Marcy Kavanaugh told the Houma Courier’s Colin Campo.
LDWF biologists confirmed the fish was a bluegill and wasn’t a hybrid.
The proud owner of a state record bream has taken the accomplishment in stride.
“I’m not any different from what I was the day before. It just makes me feel good to accomplish something like that. It’s all good,” Trahan said in the story.
DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.
