Capt. Jim Walsh on his 100-foot constitution boat, American Basic, left the Hampton, New Hampshire, marina at 9 p.m. Sunday. By 4 a.m. he and his crew of 30 anglers had been 100 miles offshore within the Atlantic the place they anchored and dropped their baits deep alongside a ledge.
“We began catching pollock fairly good,” Walsh tells Out of doors Life. “However when the solar obtained up, the motion actually kicked in and everybody was catching fish, largely pollock.”
The anglers had a terrific morning, and about 10 a.m. Walsh determined to drag the boat’s anchor and drift awhile to see what else they may catch.
“It was a beautify, sunny day and we thought we would catch some greater fish drifting by means of the world.”
On board that day was 13-year-old Jackson Denio, an skilled angler and a deck hand for half-day fishing charters for Al Gauron Deep Sea Fishing charters. Walsh is operating constitution journeys by means of Gauron’s enterprise, and Denio was alongside for the journey. Denio’s pal, Austin Leaver, was additionally on board.
“Jackson is a superb, hard-working younger man, and he wished to catch one thing large,” says Walsh, 68. “So he took an 8-pound pollock that he’d caught earlier, put an 8/0 hook by means of it, and despatched it deep off the port aspect whereas we had been drifting.”
About 10:30 a.m. Denio hooked one thing giant, and everybody on board took discover, together with Walsh.
“I knew it was one thing good, and I yelled to him, ‘That’s not a shark!’” Walsh says. “That younger man fought that fish like a champ. There was no give up in him. A number of males would have handed off that rod as a result of the fish fought so exhausting. However not Jackson.”
Half an hour later Denio had labored the fish up from the underside close to their boat, the place crew members sunk a big flying gaff into it. (A flying gaff detaches from an extended pole. The gaff head is connected to a heavy rope, and acts like a secondary, large hook in a fish.)
“We labored the halibut round to the boat gate amid ship, and opened it,” Walsh mentioned. “It took 4 of us to haul the fish up and onto the deck.”
The anglers rapidly stashed it in a big on-deck cooler. The anglers fished till midday, then headed again to Hampton the place they arrived about 6 p.m.
At a fish home close to the marina they weighed Denio’s halibut on licensed scales. It tallied 177 kilos and taped out at 72 inches lengthy.
The paperwork is being crammed out now to certify the halibut as a world-record within the Worldwide Sport Fish’s youth class (age 16 and below). The IGFA youth file Atlantic halibut is presently vacant, so it’s probably Denio’s fish will grow to be a world-record catch.
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The fish remains to be complete and frozen, however quickly can be cleaned with recent, succulent halibut fillets out there to Denio’s household and pals.
“He did such a terrific job catching that halibut,” mentioned Walsh. “Jackson solely weighs 120 kilos, and he’s 5 ft 9 inches tall. That fish was longer than he’s tall and outweighs him by 50 kilos.”
