When a charter fishing-boat captain saw the giant fin break the surface, he first thought he was dealing with an enormous shark.
Damon Sacco theorized the massive fish was too big to be a marlin.
As it turns out that’s indeed what it was.
Walter Chapman, Sacco’s client, landed what a UMaine researcher believes is the largest blue marlin ever caught in the Gulf of Maine.
The fish was just 142 pounds shy of the world record for a blue marlin, caught off Brazil in 1992, according to records reviewed by The Associated Press.
Walt Golet, director of the University of Maine Pelagic Fisheries Lab and an associate professor at the university’s marine sciences school, said the likelihood of catching such a fish in the chilly gulf is almost nil.
The water is too cold for them in the Northeast most of the year, making the window to catch a big one very narrow, Golet said.
The fish’s head was shipped (on ice) to the UMaine lab to determine its age.Golet estimated a range of 25 to 30 years.
“I don’t suspect there will be a whole lot of blue marlin caught in the Atlantic in general that are going to top 1,200 pounds for the next several years,” he said.
