Canberra's fishing community are buzzing about what lies beneath Lake Burley Griffin after a whopping catch broke a record set nearly exactly a year ago to the day.
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In late February last year Luke Dal Pozzo claimed a new record for the Canberra Native Cup with his 82 centimetre-long Murray cod, which broke a 10-year-old record of 80 centimetres.
But Dal Pozzo's record has now been broken in quick succession by amateur angler Kurt Mitchell, who landed an unbelievable 93 centimetre Murray cod in the same competition.
"It was just pure excitement when I saw it," Mitchell told The Canberra Times. "I was just yelling out, 'Yeah baby!'
"I got the photo of it on the mat and didn't get one of me with it because I wanted to get it straight back in the water, because precious fish that big shouldn't be out of the water long.
"When the fish jumped it actually snapped the front of the brag mat too."
Mitchell said it was just "fate" that he managed to snag the massive catch. It was towards the end of the evening's competition window when the fisherman decided to head back to the boat ramp and get his three red fin officially recorded.
On his way back though he decided to throw out a stump-jumper lure to trawl on his heavy duty rod. He hadn't had much luck with big fish but he thought he'd give it a go.
"I was coming to the end of the rowing lanes and then the cod hit it so hard," Mitchell said. "I knew it was a good fish instantly.
"It was pretty much right on 8.30pm but it was really hard to see, and it was just panic stations being by myself."
Getting dark and without a headlight that night, Mitchell stopped the boat and began drifting while he fought the fish for five minutes, struggling to get it off the bottom of the lake bed.
"It was like pulling a tonne of bricks," he said.
"I've caught a bigger one out of the Murrumbidgee, but that was the largest I've ever caught in the Canberra lakes, and in competition too.
"It took a while to get it up. It was a very fat fish."
Mitchell has been competing in the Canberra on the Water fishing league for just two years, but has fished ever since he was a kid.
The catch earned him a fishing store voucher, a place in the record books and helped him extend his lead in first position on points overall in the Canberra Native Cup competition which is running for its 11th year.
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