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Golden Surprise: 3-year-old's big catch at park leaves locals baffled
McCOOK Neb. — “Kept in a small bowl, the goldfish will remain small. With more space, the fish will grow double, triple or quadruple its size.” — a quote from the movie Big Fish. With that in mind, how big would a goldfish get if it lived in a pond at Barnett Park? Three-year-old Kayson Knowles can tell you, because he caught one.
Alex Knowles is originally from McCook, where he went fishing at Barnett Park as a kid. He now lives in Culbertson but brings his kids to go fishing at Barnett Park nearly every other week. “Barnett Park is a great place to take the kids. There’s the playground, so if they get tired of fishing, they can go play.”
“I let them go down there and catch bluegill because they’re easy to catch, and I don’t have to do anything. I just put a piece of corn on their hook; they love it.”
On a Saturday in May, luck seemed to elude them. As Alex suggested, Kayson, the youngest of five and the only boy, cast his pole in a different location. Little did they know, a surprise was waiting for them. “At first, I thought it was a carp,” Alex shared, “but when Kayson reeled it in, I said, ‘Dude, you just caught a goldfish!’” Alex had never seen a goldfish at Barnett Park before.
And what was Kayson’s reaction to this unexpected catch? “At first, he was excited, but then he was terrified; he had never seen a fish so big,” Alex recalled. After capturing the moment with a picture, they gently released the goldfish into the pond.
One could wonder how much it will grow by the next time someone has the joy of catching it.