An angler who at first thought he was snagged on the bottom reeled in an extraordinarily massive halibut off Norway on Monday, but not without extreme difficulty.
Christer Carlund was drift-fishing with Sportquest Holidays above the Arctic Circle when his rod suddenly bent and he complained of being stuck. Alexander Lindgren, the guide, thought that was odd because they were over a sandy bottom, so he briefly took the rod.
That was when the 8-foot-long, 416-pound halibut began to shake its giant head, putting incredible pressure on the gear.
“On handing back the rod to Christer catastrophe happened, the fish lunged hard and in that split second the rod broke in half,” Sportquest Holidays, which is headquartered in the U.K., explained in a news release issued Thursday. “Both the guide and customer knew their odds of landing such a fish had just been shattered.”
But a methodical tug-of-war began, with the captain keeping the boat directly over the fish to increase the odds of winning the battle.
After about 45 minutes “a huge shadow appeared below them.”
As soon as the halibut reached the surface, before the anticipated thrashing, Lindgren used a chin gaff to turn the fish so he could thread a rope through its mouth and gill. He then roped the tail to secure the catch.
They used a time-tested measurement formula to estimate the weight at 416 pounds. That’s only about three pounds shy of the world record Atlantic halibut – a 418-pound, 13-ounce fish caught of Norway in 2004.
But Carlund’s intention all along was to release the halibut so it could “safely fight another day.” After he jumped into the water to pose with his catch, and to help with the release, the fish was set free.
The halibut was caught on a dead mackerel off the Lofoten Islands, in a shallow-water area when giant halibut gather each July to feed on schooling mackerel.
Sportquest Holidays said trips for 2020 and 2021 are already close to selling out.
–Images are courtesy of Sportquest Holidays
