JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A St. Peters man reeled in a state-record-matching fish from the Missouri River earlier this month.
The Missouri Department of Conservation reports that Anthony Rozniak caught a three-pound skipjack herring on Dec. 6 while fishing with his brother near St. Louis.
Rozniak and his brother were hoping to reel in catfish that day. His first catch of the day was a one-and-a-half-pound skipjack. Moments later, Rozniak enjoyed an even bigger surprise.
“The very next cast was double that size,” he told MDC. “We had only been out fishing for 15 minutes by the time I caught it. I looked at my brother and said, ‘I hate to cancel our fishing trip, but we got a state record! We got to go!’”
MDC officials weighed the fish at their St. Louis regional office. MDC says Rozniak matched the pole-and-line record for a skipjack herring, also attained in 2017 and 2019 in the Osage River.
MDC says this is the fifth state-record fish caught in 2023.
“It’s funny because about five months ago, I did look through the list of state records and said to my brother, if we did break one, it would be a skipjack,” he told MDC. “I honestly never thought it would happen, but I feel extremely lucky.”
A skipjack herring is commonly around 12-16 inches long and usually doesn’t weight more than 3.5 pounds, per MDC.
