Keith Day can now lay claim to a distinction that most catfish anglers can only imagine: He's the holder of a state record. In early April, the 49-year-old angler pulled a blue cat weighing over 110 pounds from the Mississippi River in southeast Louisiana, besting the old record by more than 5 pounds.

"It's something I never dreamed of," said the Zachary resident.

Day was fishing a part of the river near St. Francisville, an area in which he's caught numerous catfish up to 40 pounds. It took him more than hour to land the lunker cat.

"I had no idea what it weighed," he said. "I figured it weighed 100 pounds, though. But I wasn't thinking no record."

After a friend advised Day that the current state record was 105 pounds, father and son set off to find a set of scales on which to weigh the fish. The fish tipped the certified scales of a local seafood restaurant at a whopping 110 pounds, 3 ounces. It had a girth of 40 1/8 inches and was 57 inches long. Day had the fish certified by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries the next day.

"I'm sure it (the record) could be broken anytime," Day said. "There's some out there twice as big."

For more on Keith Day's giant Louisiana catfish, see the August issue of Louisiana Game & Fish magazine, available on newsstands July 19.