Never say never, but I’m probably not going to deal with the paperwork unless it’s some truly amazing fish and then I might still just let the fish go or eat it rather than going through the trouble of entering a potential record fish.
I fly fish and as you probably already know there’s a whole separate division for records using fly gear. I have caught several croaker on flies over the measly .53 pound Texas State fly rod record fish, but it’s mostly just embarrassing to claim a record so tiny. So if I get a 10 or 12 ounce croaker, who really cares, it’s so far off the potential size for that type of fish. A four or five pound croaker would be more interesting and that might be something to officially claim.
There’s no gafftop fly rod record recorded so any gafftop on a fly would be the record.
Here’s your fly rod record gafftop should I have entered it into the record books. Why though, when it’s not even close to the all tackle record fish? Do I really want to go out of my way to a weigh station or have to fill out paperwork at the end of the trip?
There’s a number of blank slots and very reachable records in the fly rod section. I do think a lot of fly fishermen are like me and just say no to recording their fish or are more or less apathetic to having an official record. There probably shouldn’t be a separate fly rod division.
I guess It is fun to look at the records once in a while to see where a fish I get might catch stacks up to the numbers. Mostly, I just like to fish and like getting a good fish of it’s kind. It might be fun to have an all tackle record fish, but I’m thinking I’d probably just forgo the extra effort and eat the fish or let it go.