STOCKTON, Mo. — Angler Ryan Young of Buffalo used to be nicknamed "The Trashman" because he only seemed to catch undesirable fish. A state-record-setting catch just got rid of that nickname for good.
Young was with guide Kris Nelson on Oct. 13 at Southern Missouri's Stockton Lake when all his training came to fruition
“I told him on Sunday he either needed to catch a carp or a buffalo and he’d have caught every species in the lake,” Nelson told the Missouri Department on Conservation (MDC). “And the next time he drops his line, he hooks into something big.”
It took 30 minutes for the men to get a monster 55-pound, 9-ounce black buffalo into the boat. They contacted their local conservation agent because they suspected the catch could be a state record. Their suspicions were proved right, with their catch beating the previous 53-pound pole-and-line black buffalo record set on Wappapello Lake in 1989.
“I’m just in shock,” Young told MDC about his record. “It just shows you never know what you’ll catch when you head out.”
Black buffalo is one of the largest species of sucker fish in the state, which live on the bottom of waterways and feed by sucking up invertebrates and plants, according to the department. In many streams, MDC says the total poundage of sucker fish sometimes exceeds that of all other fish combined.
Young's catch is the 5th state record-breaking fish caught in the state in 2024, the second-most recent of which was a grass carp on Aug. 12 that took decades to catch.
