Angler Attributes State Record to Lessons from Dad

Records come and go, as they say, but it took nearly 40 years for a new record to be set for a popular gamefish species in North Carolina.

And the record-setting angler himself went back a ways to get ‘er done.

“We started fishing in a pond but weren’t having any luck, so I said to my kids, ‘Let’s go back to where I learned how to fish’ and this is what we caught,” Alphonso Jackson said in a North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission news release about his record redbreast sunfish caught earlier this month.“I’d like to thank my daddy for teaching me how to catch fish and where to catch fish.”

Jackson, 43, broke a 36-year-old record on June 10 when he caught a 2-pound, 1-ounce redbreast from the Lumber River near Wagram. He used a cricket as bait. The fish was weighed on a certified scale at Safeway Market in Maxton.

Jackson said his father, Johnny Jacobs, was instrumental in teaching him how to fish. And the angler did some teaching as well, as his three children were with him when he caught the record.

The previous record — caught May 29, 1983 by Ronald Stanley at Bog Swamp in Braden County — weighed 1-12.

It was at least the third state record for a bream species to be broken this year. New marks also were set in Colorado and Georgia (click links for the stories). Click here for more stories on state records.

For a list of all freshwater fish state records in North Carolina or more information on the State Record Fish Program, visit the Commission’s State Record Fish program webpage.

---