Joe Baze of Chariton, Iowa is a catfishing legend in the Baze family. Because of the fact that he caught many large catfish, including the Iowa State record flathead, he got the nickname "Catfish" Joe. After Joe had officially been awarded with the state record, many newspaper and magazine articles were written about the catch and how he was awarded the record 34 years after he caught the fish. The story of the record setting catch is a good one and to tell the whole story, we put together a compilation of many of the articles (which can be found on the Newspaper & Magazine Articles page) and hopefully, this way, you'll be able to read the whole, correct, typo-free story of "Catfish" Joe and his record setting catch....

CHARITON - Most fishermen dream of catching at least one trophy during their lifetime. For 85-year-old Joe Baze of Chariton, this dream has been fulfilled - several times over!

To his credit thus far, Baze has taken numerous lunkers on rod & reel; several large flatheads (both from Lake Ellis near Chariton), a 20 lb. channel catfish (from Lake Miami), and a 7½ pound largemouth bass (from Lake Red Haw). "I got one that was 42 pounds, another that was 45 pounds, and another that was 57 pounds," Joe said. The 57 pounder was actually caught by Joe's friend Emery Callison. All of these catches, however, pale in comparison to the giant Baze caught in 1958.

While Joe Baze typically devoted most Saturdays to fishing at one of the local lakes, this particular Saturday was going to be different. Although Baze's son Fred (also a fishing addict) was home on leave from the army, the elder Baze decided the wind just wasn't right. "I put a lot of faith in weather," said Baze, "and this day the wind was out of the east." (Wind from the east, fish bite the least.)

Strangely enough, along about 4:00 p.m. the wind made a complete shift and started blowing from the west. (Wind from the west, fish bite the best.) Joe hollered at his son to grab his fishing pole, for it looked as if they'd be spending Saturday evening on the lake after all.

Arriving at little Lake Ellis (a 70 acre impoundment formerly referred to as the "city reservoir") the elder Baze took up his spot on the lake's dam where he hoped to catch some more 2½ to 3 pound channel cats, just as he'd done on a couple of previous trips. Meanwhile, Fred flipped over the homemade wooden rowboat they kept on the shore and began the short trek to his favorite weedbed where he'd do some plug fishing for largemouths.

Joe, meanwhile, baited his 2/0 single hook with a piece of fresh shrimp. Casting the shrimp and egg-shaped slip sinker to the deepest part of the lake (approximately 30 feet of water), Joe positioned his rod on a stick and leaned back to relax.

It was about an hour later when Joe began to question his own decision to go fishing, after neither angler experienced a single bite or nibble. Suddenly, as he tried to erase the thought from his head, the light-to-medium action pole he had staked out on the bank began to fiercely bend over double.

Quickly grabbing the rod in order to set the hook, Baze soon realized he'd hooked into something other than a three pound channel cat. "As the 12 pound line began peeling off my reel, I knew I had to do something fast," said Baze. "For in no time the giant fish stripped off over 100 feet of line."

Baze yelled to his son, who was by now about 100 yards away in his rowboat. "I hollered back 'Try to hold him,'" related the younger Baze, "and I'll be in to help."

After reaching his father, Fred made a mad dash to the car in order to retrieve the gaff (a long-handled hook for landing large fish) that was always kept in the trusty fishing vehicle. Grabbing the gaff, Fred arrived back at his father's side only to realize the fish had no intention of slowing down, and to make matters worse, the line was nearly gone from Joe's reel.

Quickly the two excited anglers jumped in the rowboat, and thus began their effortless sightseeing tour of the lake. For the yet unseen monster fish towed the small craft and its passengers as if they were a bobber or cork.

"We got pulled around the entire lake, up one arm and then the next," Fred said. "Dad scared me to death once. He smoked these roll your own cigarettes at that time. At one time he held the rod and reel under his arm and rolled a cigarette while that fish dragged us all over the lake."

"Whenever the fish would tire and stop, I'd 'twang' my line in order to make him mad so he'd start swimming again," Joe said.

"That fish seemed fairly intelligent," said Fred. "If I turned the boat around so that it was being pulled stern first, he would swap directions. He took us all over that lake, but in the end he returned to almost the exact spot where Dad hooked him."

After nearly 1½ hours of cruising the water under the power of their "live" motor, it appeared the fish was beginning to tire of the battle.

"I told Fred that if we don't get it in before dark, we probably never will," Joe said. So, while Fred readied the gaff, the now arm-weary Joe begain to apply some pressure.

Suspecting they probably had a large catfish all along, it wasn't until the monster appeared near the boat that their suspicions were confirmed. The father and son team didn't begin to imagine, however, just how big the fish was!

Said Joe, "When I first saw the fish about four feet below the boat, it looked like a submarine."

"A fish of that size in five feet of water looked like a great white shark," said Fred.

Gaffing the fish solidly with the large metal hook Fred had taken from the car, he and his father (who had momentarily laid down his fishing rod) began to slowly ease the giant over the side of the small craft. Then suddenly without warning, the gaff hook straightened out and the catfish, which was nearly in the boat, slowly slipped back into the deep murky water.

"He straightened out the gaff hook and I thought 'Oh no!' I was afraid I'd lost him for a minute," Fred said, "but I guess he was just too tired to go anywhere."

Figuring they'd lost the fish forever, Joe quickly picked up the rod and reel which lay in the bottom of the boat only to find he still had the lunker on his line!

After once again bringing the fish alongside the boat, Fred re-bent the gaff hook and proceeded to again assist his father. This time after the hook was securely anchored in the fish's jaw, each of the men grabbed a gill, and with all their strength, hefted the huge flathead over the edge until it rested safely at their feet inside the small wooden vessel.

A crowd, which had by this time gathered on shore, gasped and cheered at the sight of the creature. Ironically, the catfish was finally boated back at the original spot where Joe first hooked into it, only about 15 feet from where he sat on the dam. Two of the people witnessing the catch were Florence Clark and her grandson Jimmy, who was three at the time. They stood on the bank and in her words watched Baze "wrestling it out there for the longest time." When Jimmy saw the fish and she told him it had a mouth big enough to eat him, he was too scared to come back to the lake for a long time.

Two hours later when the fish was weighed at the Chariton Super Value, it tipped the scales at a whopping 81 pounds and measured out to 52 inches in length. When the then Iowa Conservation Department (DNR) was contacted about the fish, a fisheries biologist was sent to Baze's house. Baze offered it to the commission for their display at the state fair, and while they accepted the offer, the Commission told Baze it would take three days for a truck to arrive.

In the meantime, he needed to keep the fish alive. Knowing he had no place to keep it, Baze instead cleaned the fish and cut 25 steaks from its fillets. Seven pounds of cheek meat was given to a local tavern owner.

While an account of the feat was printed in the September 1958 issue of Outdoor Life magazine, Baze was never recognized as the state record holder until June of 1992. This came about as a result of research and paperwork completed by his granddaughter Pam Honken of Norfolk, Virginia.

After seeing a display at the Iowa State Fair in 1991 with a picture of the then-state-record 64-pound flathead, Honken brought it to the DNR's attention. "She knew that her granddad had caught a bigger one," said her father, "and decided to get it recognized as the state record for him." They advised her on what steps needed to be taken in order to qualify her grandpa's fish as a record. By tracking down eyewitnesses to the landing and weighing she was able to satisfy the DNR's requirements.

Former fisheries bureau chief, Jim Mayhew, was a fisheries biologist in Lucas County at the time and witnessed the weighing of the fish. Using a vertebra taken by the biologist at the time the fish was cleaned, helped in establishing the fish as the new title holder. This vertebra also indicated the fish was 34 years old at the time Baze caught it. It seems only fitting then, that another 34 years passed before they fish and its lucky pursuer received the just due they both deserved.

On Sunday, June 21st, 1992, during a surprise birthday party for Joe's 85th birthday, Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist Larry Mitzner presented a certificate to Joe, proving that his name and the fish he caught had become the new record on the state's official big fish registry. "Since it's his birthday and Father's Day, I wanted to give hime something special," Pam said. When Mitzner presented the certificate to Joe, tears came to his eyes. Then a smile lit up his face, as he posed for the cameras of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who surrounded him as he celebrated 85 years of life and a record that he had waited 34 years to get credit for.