headed out of Massachusetts at five am this morning. really really foggy. finally made it out to the fishing grounds. we were slow trolling live bunker(pogies). every one else was pulling plastic squid bars. we had a small shark swirl on the bait right away. action was slow till about 11 o'clock. saw a good mark on the screen and about five seconds later i just saw the fish crash the bait. it looked like someone had dropped a car on the bait. well we hooked the fish, and it started off peeleing out line.from the fight i estimated the fish to be around 80 pounds. as the fight continued on for another hour we realized the fish was big. we sunk two gaffs into the gill plates after some crazy boat manuevers. the fish had a fork length of 71 inches. a girth of 46 inches. the marina did not have a scale big enough so i sent the measurements to a website and the estimated wieght turned out to be 223 lbs!!!!!!

only two people in the area that we were fishing caught fish… the other fish was also caught on a live pogie. this fish weighed 700 pounds and was caught within one hundred yards of where the fish i caught bit.

it was a great fight.. especially on a stand up 50. the leader was only 80 lbs and i was suprised it did not chafe in the long fight. as the fish was doing the death circle under the boat we observed a shark swim right up to it. luckily it did not bother with it.

here is some pictures

fighting the fish

gaff shot

landed

my new friend

length

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-Jake Emche