His parents should be proud of him!
Honesty costs him a world record
http://www.roanoke.com/outdoors/imag...ran100x138.jpg Bill Cochran
#story-add1, .story-add1 {float:right;margin:0 8px 4px 4px;padding:5px;border:1px solid #ccc;width:230px; }http://www.roanoke.com/outdoors/bill...orts011509.jpg Gus Huddleston with 63-pound, 2-ounce striped bass.
They can’t take the thrill of catching a 63-pound, 2-ounce striped bass away from 11-year-old Gus Huddleston. But the world record? That's another story.
Huddleston, who lives in Rocky Mount, N.C., was on a birthday fishing trip with his dad, Mike, and some friends. They were trolling off Virginia’s Smith Island north of Virginia Beach when a huge striper hit their chartreuse G&H Offshore Shad.
When the fish struck, Huddleston scrambled to grab the rod out of its holder then briefly handed it to a friend while he assumed a better fighting position.
The handoff took just mere seconds, but it broke a rule and cost Huddleston the world record for a junior angler. The current youth striper record is 57 pounds.
A key element of this story is the fact that Huddleston and his fellow anglers could have kept quite about the handoff, but they went by the rules.
Handing off a rod is a major no-no in the record-setting process of the International Game Fish Association, according to Dr. Julie Ball, who represents the IGFA in Virginia.
“It was an outstanding catch, nonetheless,” she said.
“We had to be honest with everybody -- with ourselves,” said Mike Huddleston.
That attitude has been refreshing to many anglers, considering that too many winter striped bass fishermen purposely beak the law by fishing beyond the 3-mile limit.
Losing the record broke the heart of Mike Huddleston but Gus told the media, “It is fine with me that it didn’t count.”
This sixth grader is such an accomplished outdoorsman -- he has killed 17 deer -- that you have to figure he is confident some day his name will go into the record book.
Huddleston’s striper is one of several that have shot past the 60-pound mark. Two were contest catches.
Christian Seay of Cheriton entered a 65.5-pound striper to become the overall winner in the Mercury 2008 Striped Bass World Championship in Virginia Beach.
The winner of the American Striper Association Mercury Striper Series in Virginia was Capt. Max King who entered a 61.5 pound fish that was a record weight for the annual tournament.
