I've always thought it odd the way fishing season begins in the spring, fades in the summer, and then virtually disappears in the fall. But if you've been fishing a while, you know that the biggest fish are caught in the fall, after they fattened up a bit during the summer, and when they are busy bulking up voraciously for the long winter. Witness this couple of fish caught in the past two weeks.

First, there is the blue catfish caught by Lynn Lange on the Ohio River on September 12. She and her husband Tim didn't think much of the 29¾-pound fish initially. “Just another 30-pound blue,” Tim said. But the 42-inch long fish was a new West Virginia state record. I mean, come on Tim. Your wife's snapping pictures of it, and it's just another fish?

OK, but Kyle Anderson did not catch just another muskie. Kyle landed a mammoth 50-pound, 8-ounce, 55-inch long muskie. This fish was so big, it had a name. "Queen" had been studied by the local fish commish with an acoustic device that allowed biologists to follow her the last couple years. Now, to his considerable credit, Kyle tried to save the fish for over an hour, but in the end the toothy monster failed to swim away, and like it or not, Kyle had his record.