Two fishermen from Massachusetts recently accomplished a remarkable angling feat, spending three arduous hours battling a massive fish they initially mistook for a shark. The catch ultimately proved to be an Atlantic blue marlin, weighing an astonishing 1,260 pounds, potentially making it the largest ever reeled in off the East Coast.
Damon Stacco, captain of the charter boat Castafari, recounted that the day began quietly. However, after he and client Walter Chapman had already secured a haul of yellowfin tuna, Stacco spotted an unusual fin approximately 100 miles offshore from Cape Cod.
“A huge dorsal,” Stacco described on his social media page. “Am I really seeing this? Four feet high but pointed. A blue hue flashed beneath it. Pecs? Holy s--- it's a marlin! The fin dissappeared when I screamed. I dropped back the rod beside me and the tip bounced. Line ripped from beneath my fingers.”
He later informed reporters that the sheer size of the fish initially made him doubt it could be a marlin.
A Monumental Catch Off Cape Cod
The monumental catch, made on a Wednesday, was officially confirmed when the fish was weighed at 1,260 pounds on an International Game Fish Association (IGFA) certified scale in Falmouth.
Stacco declared on Instagram, “Well, it’s official.” He hailed the catch as a “gift from the Gods and new blue marlin Mass. state record and possibly for the Western Atlantic.”
The enormous marlin was just 142 pounds shy of the existing world record for an Atlantic blue marlin, a 1,402-pound specimen caught off the coast of Brazil 34 years ago.
Stacco credited Chapman with undertaking the majority of the strenuous work during the battle, playfully remarking that his own role was to “drive the bus around and yell at people.”
Expert Weighs In on Rare Find
Walt Golet, who directs the University of Maine Pelagic Fisheries Lab, emphasized the extraordinary nature of such a catch in Massachusetts waters, noting that the region's colder temperatures typically make it less hospitable for these large tropical fish for most of the year.
Golet estimated that the impressive marlin could be between 25 and 30 years old, with its head transported to his lab for further analysis and confirmation. He also offered a perspective on the rarity of such giant catches.
“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,” Golet predicted.
The powerful struggle left its mark on Stacco’s vessel, with the fish creating several holes in the boat’s transom, which Stacco referred to as “war marks.”
Chapman, a seasoned angler himself, confirmed that the substantial amount of meat from the fish would be distributed among approximately a dozen individuals. He humorously added, “I wasn't going to eat a 1,200-pound fish all by myself.”