RAVENSWOOD, W.Va. — A Jackson County doctor is the new record holder for perch in West Virginia.
Clinton Mills of Ravenswood practices internal medicine during the day–but when he can steal a day out of the office, you’ll find him fishing. He was with fishing buddy Sam Cowell in a boat at Summersville Lake just over a year ago when he hooked the giant.
“We were catching walleyes and I just assumed it was another walleye,” Mills told Metronews of the February 2018 catch. “I was impressed.”
He had a right to be, it was a quite impressive fish. The perch turned out to be the heaviest of its species ever caught in West Virginia and established the new weight record at 2.04 pounds. The fish bests the former record of 1.93 pounds caught from Summersville Lake in 2012 by Joshua Estes.
The fish was 14.5 inches long.
According to Mills he caught the fish on a live minnow fishing about 30 feet below the surface.