A Hawaii angler appears to have shattered a state record, set 22 years ago by his brother, with the catch of a nearly 26-pound octopus.
Michael Matsunaga, 69, of Wahiawa, reeled the giant mollusk from a depth of 400 feet on Aug. 30. Once the slithery creature was aboard the boat, however, Matsunaga struggled to keep it there.
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“I finally got him in the cooler, and then I had to sit on the cooler because he was kind of lifting me up,” Matsunaga told Hawaii News Now.
The octopus, caught off Turtle Bay on Oahu’s North Shore, weighed 25.95 pounds on a certified scale at Hanapaa Fishing.
The existing record, set by Stewart Matsunaga, stands at 19.01 pounds. Stewart reeled that octopus from a depth of 250 feet off Kaena Point, Oahu, in 2000.
Michael Matsunaga, now with bragging rights, presumably has submitted a record application with the state.
Asked what he would do with his catch, he told Hawaii News Now that he planned to eat the octopus after boiling it in beer “one leg at a time.”
–Image courtesy of Hanapaa Fishing
