Tag: Fishing

Angler’s tiny catch breaks 27-year-old record

A Missouri angler had to convince friends that his recent catch of a longear sunfish broke a 27-year-old state record, simply because the fish was so small.

A Missouri angler had to convince friends that his recent catch of a longear sunfish broke a 27-year-old state record – simply because the fish was so small.

But at 4 ounces the sunfish caught by Robert Audrain III earlier this month shattered the previous record, set in 1993, by a full ounce.

“It’s funny because most of my friends thought it was a joke,” Audrain told the Missouri Department of Conservation, which announced the record last Thursday via social media. “Because of the fish’s size, they really didn’t think that it was a record.”

Audrain caught the sunfish via throwline, or handline, July 3 from a dock on his father-in-law’s private pond in Franklin County. He had been fishing with his 12-year-old son.

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Because it was not caught with a rod and reel it falls into Missouri’s “alternative method” category. The rod and reel record is an 11-ounce longear sunfish caught from a private pond in 2007.

For the sake of comparison, the all-tackle world record is a 1-pound, 12-ounce longear sunfish caught in New Mexico’s Elephant Butte Lake in 1985.

Audrain, whose hands dwarfed his sunfish as he posed for a photo, plans to put his prized catch on prominent display at home:

“My buddy’s father is a taxidermist, and I think I’m going to have him mount it,” he said.

–Image courtesy of the Missouri Department of Conservation

Watch: Angler smacked in ‘kisser’ by airborne barracuda

The accompanying footage shows why anglers should not stand too close to other anglers as they’re hauling barracuda over the rails.

The accompanying footage shows why anglers should not stand too close to other anglers as they’re hauling barracuda over the rails.

Phil Friedman, a well-known figure in the Southern California angling community, was capturing video with his phone earlier this week as his son, Patrick, announced that he was about to bounce a barracuda onto the deck.

As viewers can see, the barracuda is flung directly into the face – and camera lens – of the elder Friedman.

“Is this any way to treat your father?” Phil joked in the video description, which shows the episode in regular and slow motion. The video title: “Phil Friedman gets a barracuda right to the kisser.”

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Barracuda boast extremely sharp teeth and sport a thick coat of slime. Phil was not injured, but told For The Win Outdoors that he spent several minutes in the galley trying to remove slime from his phone.

His sons, Patrick and Philip Jr., founded Bass Bros Fishing and frequently post about their adventures via Instagram and YouTube.

‘UFO’ nearly takes heads off stunned fishermen

An Unexpected Flying Object caught a trio of fishermen by surprise while sitting in their boat on calm waters off Hilton Head, S.C.

An Unexpected Flying Object caught a trio of fishermen by surprise on July 4th while sitting in their boat looking for bait on calm waters 15 miles off Hilton Head, S.C.

A 3-foot-long king mackerel, a fish Jackson Tomaszewski had always wanted to catch, came flying out the water “like a torpedo” and smashed a boat seat, leaving the stunned fishermen in disbelief as to what they just witnessed.

Tomaszewski, fishing with friends Nathan and Garrison Stone, excitedly started videotaping the fish flopping around in the boat and documented the seat the fish had broken.

“We literally have no rods in the water,” Tomaszewski said in the Facebook video. “It landed in the seats. It came flying at us like a freaking torpedo. It’s busted the seat. Oh my gosh. I cannot believe this has happened. This is unbelievable.”

https://www.facebook.com/jackson.tomaszewski.7/posts/1932441880240255

“It was a like a lake out there, and out of nowhere this thing just came flying at us,” Tomaszewski, 21, told The Island Packet.

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Tomaszewski told For The Win Outdoors the king mackerel weighed about 35 pounds. He said he believed the fish was chasing Spanish mackerel because several small fish jumped out of the water before the king mackerel went airborne.

“It almost took our heads off,” Tomaszewski told The Island Packet. “I knew exactly what it was. I’ve been fishing my whole life, and I’ve never caught one. I was literally praying to catch one of these things.”

He finally did, but in a very much unconventional way.

He later barbecued the fish at his father’s Fourth of July cookout.

Photo courtesy of Jackson Tomaszewski.

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With time to kill, angler smashes 62-year-old lake trout record

A Maine angler “with a couple of hours to kill” caught a lake trout that’s likely to shatter a state record that has stood for 62 years.

A Maine angler “with a couple of hours to kill” last Thursday caught a lake trout that’s likely to shatter the 62-year-old state record.

The lake trout caught by Erik Poland at Lower Richardson Lake weighed 39.2 pounds. The state record is a 31.5-pound lake trout caught by Hollis Grindle at Beech Hill Pond in 1958.

Poland told For The Win Outdoors that he has provided catch details and a document signed by the Maine Warden Service to The Maine Sportsman, which maintains fishing records, and expects his record to be approved soon.

“I don’t see any obstacles in that process,” he said.

Poland, 34, of Andover, told the Bangor Daily News that he went fishing mainly to pass time. “I had a couple of hours to kill [so] I thought I’d fish for salmon for awhile, go for a swim, then head home.”

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When he failed to locate salmon on his sonar device, Poland dropped a DB Smelt lure 94 feet to the bottom, where he saw markings that indicated the presence of lake trout.

His first strike was by what is now the pending state-record fish, which he fought for more than an hour before realizing his net was too small.

“I walked it up to the back of the boat, looked at my 18- to 20-inch net and quickly kicked that to the side,” he told the Bangor Daily News. “It was half the size it needed to be. So I just grabbed [the fish] by the gill plate and hauled it up over the stern of the boat.”

Poland used lead-core line and a two-inch lure tied to a fluorocarbon leader with a breaking strength of only eight pounds, making the catch even more remarkable. “I can’t even dare to guess how many times it ran line out on me, and then I’d reel it back in,” he said.

He described the catch as bittersweet because going for a record meant killing the fish.

“There was a fleeting moment where I really wanted to put it back,” he said. “But ultimately, I would have been the biggest liar in the world if I had. Then it really would have just been a fish tale.”

Lake trout are found throughout most of Canada, into Alaska, and in parts of the U.S., where they were introduced. In the southern regions the fish tend to remain in cooler water at extreme depths.

The International Game Fish Assn. list as the all-tackle world record a 72-pound lake trout caught in Great Bear Lake in Canada’s Northern Territories in 1995.

–Images courtesy of Erik Poland

Big salmon catch became an ‘Old Man and the Sea’ moment

While fishing Lake Michigan, Dennis Stein caught a salmon and said he found himself relating on many levels to Ernest Hemingway’s novel.

While fishing Lake Michigan, Dennis Stein landed a 33-pound chinook salmon—one twice the size of his personal best and only four pounds shy of the Illinois record—and he did so while fishing solo and not using a net.

“I found myself relating to ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ on many levels,” Stein told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors, referring to Ernest Hemingway’s novel.

With friends unable to accompany him, Stein ventured out alone onto Lake Michigan from North Point Marina near the Wisconsin-Illinois border. But as he was fishing, his boat started taking on water so he decided to head in.

“When I got back and trailered the boat, I pulled the plug and the boat drained for more than half an hour with water pouring like a firehose from the drain plug hole,” he told For the Win Outdoors.

He fixed the leak and decided to test it out to make sure. So he returned to the fishing grounds where he put out three lines and hooked up a few minutes later, around 4:30 in the afternoon.

“It was not a particularly hard strike; I happened to see the rod pop free [from the downrigger] and straighten, then bend downward and the drag start running on a slow buzz,” he said. “I grabbed the rod and slowly pulled back to ensure there was a fish. There was a solid pull and I was sure I had a fish.”

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While fighting the fish, he got bit on a second rod. At one point he put the first rod into a rod holder and attended to the other before putting that back and returning to the first rod. It was a prudent move; the second fish was eventually lost.

Forty minutes into the battle and with his wrists burning, Stein could see the fish 20 feet behind the boat.

“I got him a little closer as I balanced the net where I thought I could get him,” he said. “I tried to see if I could scoop him from the back but noted he could shoot forward at an alarming rate. There was no way to get the net in front of him because I had no strength left to keep the rod up. I decided my best shot was to keep him alongside the boat and get a hand inside his gill.”

So he carefully reached down, touched the fish and discovered it “was too tired to care.”

“I quickly slipped two fingers under his gill plate and with a quick motion I was able to pull him up and over the side,” he explained. “I just sat for 10 minutes unable to move,  then I had to unhook the fish, and though he was bigger than my livewell I was able to curl him in.”

For comparison, his previous best was a 16-pounder. Incidentally, the state record for a Chinook salmon is 37 pounds caught by Marge Landeen on Aug. 7, 1976, also in Lake County waters.

With the fish securely in the livewell, Stein checked to make sure he wasn’t taking on water and headed in. Ten minutes later the boat alarm went off. Thinking he was low on oil, he added some. But the alarm kept “chiming.” Turns out, he was low on fuel. He had gone below 10 gallons and set off the alarm.

“This is where my ‘Old Man and the Sea’ reference hit me,” Stein explained. “I was an hour out and I was burning 10 gallons an hour.”

Fortunately, he managed to make it back without running out of fuel, otherwise his fish story would’ve added yet another unwelcome element.

Photo courtesy of Dennis Stein.

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112-pound blue catfish truly a landmark catch

Wade Kaminski on Friday reeled from the Mississippi River “the fish of a lifetime,” a 5-foot-long blue catfish that weighed 112 pounds.

Wade Kaminski on Friday reeled from the Mississippi River “the fish of a lifetime,” a 5-foot-long blue catfish that weighed 112 pounds.

“This is the one I’ve been chasing my whole life,” Kaminski, who is from St. Charles, Mo., told NBC affiliate KSDK.

He joins a small number of anglers to have landed blue catfish topping 100 pounds. (The Missouri state record is 130 pounds; the world record is a 143-pound blue catfish caught in Virginia’s Kerr Lake in 2011.)

Kaminski told For The Win Outdoors that a longtime goal has been to surpass the 100-pound mark. “Prior to Friday my biggest blue cat was 90 pounds and I knew right away that this fish was much larger,” he said.

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The images, with the 630-foot St. Louis Gateway Arch in the background, certainly show a fish with substantial girth.

Kaminski and Jake Derhake were drift-fishing with skipjack herring as bait when the giant catfish struck at a depth of 30 feet. The battle, on 80-pound-test braided line, lasted about eight minutes.

Their scale topped out at 100 pounds so Kaminski and Derhake motored to a St. Louis guide who was fishing near the Arch and used his scale to obtain an official weight.

The catfish was kept in an aerated live well during transit and released after it was immortalized in photos.

“We want these fish to be around for the next generations or maybe in a couple years to catch this fish again and get the same enjoyment we got today,” Kaminski told KSDK.

–Images courtesy of Wade Kaminski

Huge fish pulls two anglers over side of boat in ‘fishing miracle’ tale

A fisherman reeling in giant grouper was suddenly pulled over the boat’s side, and in the process of holding on, he lost the fishing rod in wild video.

A fisherman reeling in a 450-pound Goliath grouper was suddenly pulled over the boat’s side, and in the process of holding on, he lost the fishing rod to the fish in a wild episode aptly called the “unforgettable fishing miracle,” as you’ll soon see why.

Mike was fighting a fish of a lifetime Friday aboard Chew On This Charters with Capt. Ben Chancey out of Cape Coral, Fla., when the crazy incident occurred.

Mike lost the fishing rod overboard, but fellow angler Jenny managed to use the anchor to retrieve the rod and allow Mike to finish reeling up the still-hooked fish. After Mike jumped into the water to get a photo with the fish before it was released, more craziness ensued:

Chancey explained to USA Today/For The Win Outdoors that about 20 minutes after the fishing rod was lost, Jenny said she could see it on the bottom in the crystal clear, 40-feet deep water and asked nearby boaters for goggles. One boater had some and passed them to her.

“Jenny was planning to dive down 40 feet to get the rod,” Chancey said. “I decided to drop the anchor down so she could follow the line to the rod and reel. While I was explaining what was going on [live on Facebook], Jenny hooked the rod with the anchor and started pulling the rod up. The giant Goliath grouper was still hooked on the line.”

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Jenny’s boyfriend Eric, who arranged the surprise trip for Mike’s 30th birthday, helped clear the anchor and line, and Mike finished reeling up the grouper.

As Mike jumped into the water for the photo, the fish made a mad dash to the bottom with Eric holding the rod. Eric, too, flipped over the side, but he held on to the boat and the rod. He eventually released the lever drag so line could easily exit the reel, and the rod was handed to Chancey, who managed to keep both feet on the deck and bring the fish back to the surface to be released.

“We are calling it the unforgettable fishing miracle,” Chancey told For The Win.

Photos courtesy of Chew On This Charters.

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740-pound shark leaps out of water feet from fishermen

Video shows a mako shark attempting to eat a sailfish an angler was trying to land. It missed, flying out of the water feet from the boat.

A fisherman attempting to land a sailfish was suddenly confronted by a 740-pound mako shark that flew out of the water just feet away before splashing down next to the boat.

The incident occurred recently off the coast of Miami aboard a charter boat with skipper Mark Quartiano, better known as Mark the Shark. The fisherman was a local Miami chef, Joe Bonavita, 38.

The video shows the sailfish being chased by the mako shark. The sailfish took a quick turn near the boat as the mako shark lunged at the prey, just missing as it leaped into the air.

“We had never seen a shark get that close to the boat,” Quartino said in a post on Stuff.co.nz. “It was just a really cool thing that happened.

“The shark actually bumped against the GoPro that a crew member had on a selfie stick.”

Quartino explained that this was just a normal fishing trip, and Bonavita was trying to reel in a sailfish when the mako shark interrupted the battle.

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“Everybody was going crazy,” Quartino said.

The video shows Bonavita losing the sailfish, after which Quartino began yelling to the crew to get a bait in the water. Which they did. The crew tossed out a big tuna fish and the mako shark bit. Bonavita wound up catching the 11-foot mako shark.

A great eating fish, the mako was donated to a homeless shelter.

“All of our sharks go to Camillus House, a homeless shelter in Miami,” Quartiano said. “We don’t want any of the meat wasted.”

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Look: Jawaan Taylor reels in a massive 400-pound grouper

Jags OT Jawaan Taylor has been keeping busy during his break away from football and reeled in a massive fish during a recent trip.

With the Jacksonville Jaguars and NFL currently on break before training camp, a lot of players are taking time out to enjoy themselves in productive ways. For Jacksonville Jaguars right tackle, Jawaan Taylor, that involved some deep sea fishing this week.

During his most recent fishing trip off the coast of Jupiter, Fla., Taylor experienced a once in a lifetime situation, reeling in a 400-pound goliath grouper. Taylor posted the video via his social media accounts, which has gone viral since.

Per the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, goliath grouper can get astonishingly bigger, as the largest one ever caught off the state’s coast was 680 pounds. That catch occurred off the coast of Fernandina Beach in 1961, which coincidentally is a part of the Jacksonville metropolitan area.

Still, despite how significantly bigger the species can get, Taylor’s haul was quite impressive and an experience Floridians would love to have. Plus, it seemingly gave him a good workout.

Per the FWC, the goliath grouper species saw a drastic decline in numbers from the 1970s to the 1980s, which led to harvesting and possessing the fish being illegal. That said, Taylor and company had to release the fish, but were sure to snap a picture in the process.

Wife is ‘real’ angler, but husband lands record paddlefish

An Oklahoma man who said his wife is the “real fisherwoman” set a state record Sunday by landing a 146-pound, 11-ounce paddlefish.

An Oklahoma man who said his wife is the “real fisherwoman” of the family set a state record Sunday by landing a 146-pound, 11-ounce paddlefish.

James Lukehart’s catch also eclipsed the unofficial rod-and-reel world record – a 144-pound paddlefish pulled from a Kansas pond in 2018 – by nearly three pounds.

(Paddlefish, which eat plankton, are caught with snagging techniques and world records are kept mostly by scientists.)

Lukehart was fishing with his wife, Caitlin, on Keystone Lake, site of several recent impressive paddlefish catches. In fact, the Lukeharts’ guide, Jeremiah Mefford, held the previous state record.

Mefford, who runs Reel Good Time Guide Service, told For The Win Outdoors that watching Lukehart beat the record he set in May “was the best feeling ever,” and added: “I would watch it 100 times again.”

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Both paddlefish were carefully released with the assistance of a state biologist. (Paddlefish are fragile and regulations are strict. Anglers must use barbless hooks and can harvest only two paddlefish per year.)

Lukehart, who is from Edmond, told The Oklahoman that he likes to hunt and that his wife is the “real fisherwoman.” The couple had hoped merely to catch a paddlefish they could cook in the smoker.

Caitlin caught an 82-pound paddlefish that “we thought was enormous,” Lukehart said. He later hooked the true giant, measuring 70.5 inches and boasting a 45-inch girth.

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“We got out there in the morning and kind of joked around about catching a state record,” Lukehart recalled. “I had no idea that there was even a world-record fish out there. And let alone did I know I was fishing with the guy who had the state record. Until I caught it, I had no idea.”

The fish made several long runs before it could be handled safely alongside the boat.

According to the Tulsa World, Lukehart waded with the paddlefish to keep water moving through its gills until Jason Schooley, senior fisheries biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, arrived to collect a weight and measurements.

Schooley stayed with the fish until he felt it could swim off on its own. The swimming pattern was then monitored from the boat via sonar equipment, and the fish seemed to be OK.

–Images showing James Lukehart and his record paddlefish are courtesy of Reel Good Time Guide Service