Photo courtesy or NCWRC. John Michael Deaton of Rougemont caught this state record 1 pound and 2 ounce green sunfish in a pond on May 5.

RALEIGH, N.C. - John Michael Deaton of Rougemont landed a 1 pound, 2 ounce green sunfish while fishing on a pond at Falls of the Neuse/Butner Game Land on May 5. Deaton caught his record-breaker using an ultra light Shakespeare Ugly Stick and a live red worm as bait.

Around 11 p.m., Deaton landed the 11-inch whopper and suspected right away that he had a new state record dangling from the end of his hook.

He called his granddad, Sam Wiseman, to find out the size of the current state record.

“He looked in the regulations book and told me the state record was 8 ounces, and I knew that the fish I had caught was bigger than that,” Deaton said.

The previous green sunfish state record, held by 12-year old Robert Womack of Benson since May 18, 2005, tipped the scales at 15 ounces. (Womack’s fish was caught after the 2005-2006 N.C. Inland Fishing, Hunting and Trapping Regulations Digest went to print. The state record before that was an 8-ounce sunfish held by Gibsonville angler Craig Wyrick since Sept. 16, 1998.)

The fish was weighed on certified scales at Spanky’s Produce in Oxford and was verified by Corey Oakley, a fishery biologist with the Commission, and Wayne Starnes, curator of fishes at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.

To qualify for a state record, anglers must have caught the fish on a hook and line, must have the fish weighed on a certified scale witnessed by one observer, have the fish positively identified by a qualified expert from the Commission and submit an application with a full, side-view photo of the fish.

For more information on fishing in North Carolina’s public, inland waters, call the Commission’s Division of Inland Fisheries, (919) 707-0220 or visit www.ncwildlife.org.