Jeff Rosenkilde was fishing 75 miles off Maryland recently when he hooked what he thought might be a tuna, until he saw that the mysterious-looking fish was purple.
It turned out to be an enormous big-scale pomfret, a species typically found farther south, that earned Rosenkilde a state record.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources this week approved the 22.1-pound catch, made on Dec. 28, as the state’s first-ever record for the species.
The catch could also qualify as a world record – the current record is 21.6 pounds – if International Game Fish Assn. rules were followed during the landing of the fish.
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Rosenkilde had not responded to an inquiry from For The Win Outdoors at the time of the post, but he told the Maryland Department of Natural Resources that the pomfret took a whole squid at a depth of 1,000 feet.
“At first I thought it was a big-eyed tuna, but it had a purple, iridescent color,” he said.
Rosenkilde, who is from Monkton and was fishing with four friends, wrote on Facebook, “No love from the tuna. But we did catch a huge pomfret and a nice [swordfish]. We currently are the pomfret kings of Ocean City.”
Big-scale pomfret reside throughout the Atlantic, mostly in pelagic waters, and prey largely on shrimp and squid. They’re mostly solitary, so recreational catches are somewhat rare.
The IGFA states on its website that the world-record pomfret was caught in 2004 off St. Augustine, Fla.
–Images courtesy of Jeff Rosenkilde and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources