DAVENPORT, Iowa – With warmer spring weather rolling through it’s the perfect time to take a stroll and that’s exactly what one Davenport man did, but his walk had people gawking.
“It’s fish stories, like who caught the biggest one,” says Peter Robinson. “Just random people are like “you’re the fish guy!” and I’m like “yeah, I’m the fish guy”.”
“The Fish Guy” did what he knows best on Thursday afternoon when he went down to meet his friends at the Davenport Skybridge to check out the Mississippi River floods.
“I am country through and through,” Robinson says. “I do things that most people would be like “ahhhh!”.”
It was when he was hanging with his friends near the Skybridge that he spotted a 50-pound catfish making its way to shore. It was a tempting opportunity Robinson just couldn’t pass up.
“I reached in and noodled it,” Robinson recalls. “That’s how I got my knuckles all scraped up.”
But his story doesn’t end there. He decided to head back over to his friend’s house walking through downtown Davenport with catch in hand. That’s when he caught some stares and glances as he made his way up 4th Street.
“It turned into I’m going to get it filleted and then it turned into multiple photo ops,” says Robinson.
Those photos being shared all over Facebook and “The Fish Guy’s” fame taking off. As for the fish, Robinson decided to give it to a stranger who decided to bring the fish to Johnnie’s Meat Market in Davenport who got it filleted himself.
“This man brought this large fish in and asked if I would filet it for him,” remembers Kris Dopler, co-owner of Johnnie’s Meat Market. “He told us about catching it down underneath the Skybridge.”
That customer taking the title for the catch, but also grateful for the gift.
“Fishermen, they tell tales,” says Dopler. “That’s my fish story. Maybe I caught the fish.”
No matter what future fables wash ashore, the original “Fish Guy” will always know the tale best.
“To each his own,” Robinson says.
Johnnie’s Meat Market says they had never seen a fish that big before brought to their shop; they were able to get 30 pounds of meat after they filleted it.