ATCHISON ? Clinton Boldridge caught a fish so big he had to jump into the water and wrestle it to the shore by the gills.

It took Boldridge, of Atchison, about five minutes to subdue the 144-pound spoonbill in Dam No. 7 behind the National Guard Armory. The fish broke the state record for a spoonbill by more than 48 pounds.

“When you’ve got one that big, you take your time,” said Boldridge, a professional fisherman. “Calm down and don’t get in a hurry, because if you put too much pressure on a fish that size, you’ll lose it.”

Boldridge was fishing with his brother, Bryan Boldridge, and a friend, Michael Parsons, on May 5 when the monster fish tugged on Boldridge’s 8-pound test line.

“I saw that thing come up and thought it was a dinosaur or something,” he said.

The fish dove deep with his line, but after nearly half an hour it came back to the surface and Boldridge lunged out and grabbed the fish by the gills.

The fish initially weighed in at 139 pounds on a scale at the Atchison County Recycling Center. It later was certified at 144 pounds.

The previous Kansas state record for a spoonbill was 90.75 pounds, while the Missouri state record is 139 pounds.

A combination of luck and Boldridge’s secret dough-ball recipe handed down by someone named “Wee Wee” Kelley are credited for catching the huge fish.

“That line should have broken,” said Wayne Jones at South Town Bait and Tackle.