CONTENTS. Roosterfish. Shortfin Mako Shark. Spotted Seatrout. Striped Marlin. Tarpon. Wahoo. White Marlin. White Seabass. White Shark.

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1 CONTENTS S A L T WA T E R Roosterfish 84 Muskellunge 154 Albacore 12 Shortfin Mako Shark 88 Northern Pike 158 Atlantic Blue Marlin 16 Spotted Seatrout 92 Rainbow Trout 162 Atlantic Bluefin Tuna 20 Striped Marlin 96 Siberian Taimen 166 Bigeye Tuna 24 Tarpon 100 Smallmouth Bass 170 Black Marlin 28 Wahoo 104 Speckled Peacock Bass 174 Bluefish 32 White Marlin 108 Bonefish 36 White Seabass 112 M I G R AT O RY Broadbill Swordfish 40 White Shark 116 Arctic Char 180 California Yellowtail 44 Yellowfin Tuna 120 Atlantic Salmon 184 Dolphinfish 48 Barramundi 188 Giant Sea Bass 52 F R E S H WA T E R Chinook Salmon 192 Giant Trevally 56 Brook Trout 126 Cobia 196 Great Barracuda 60 Brown Trout 130 Coho Salmon 200 Jack Crevalle 64 Channel Catfish 134 Common Snook 204 King Mackerel 68 Cutthroat Trout 138 Striped Bass 208 Opah 72 Dorado 142 White Sturgeon 212 Pacific Sailfish 76 Giant Tigerfish 146 Index 216 Permit 80 Largemouth Bass 150

2 AUTHOR PREFACE World records are always fascinating, and what makes angling records even more so is their element of fate. In the world of sport, most benchmarks are set by finely tuned athletes, and rarely by accident. Other types of records are often set by lunatics: people who deliberately set out to exceed bizarre standards in order to achieve entry in the annual compendium of such achievements. Angling records are different. On the right day, virtually anyone wetting a line can earn one. While very few of us can ever hope to achieve a world record performance in the shot put or high jump, anglers of all stripes cling to the thought of that once-in-a-lifetime catch. The great thing about it is that you just never know. In fact, most of the stories in this book are tales of ordinary people catching extraordinary fish. Interestingly, the appearance of world record fish vary as widely as the people who catch them. As you ll see, many of these fish have odd features that make them atypical of their species. Some are grossly fat, while a few are outsized in other dimensions. Artist Flick Ford has painstakingly researched each of these catches with the goal of painting them as individual world record specimens and not as generic examples of their kind. Anglers who are intimately familiar with a given species may be surprised at some of the features or coloring reflected in his paintings. In each case, that s simply how they were. Fortunately, there is only one universal clearinghouse for world record catch certification, and that is the International Game Fish Association (IGFA). Founded in 1939, the IGFA s role as world record keeper has come to define it, and 6 SALTWATER

3 today it maintains all-tackle records on more than one thousand species of fish. Holders of such records have seen fit to include them in biographies, résumés, and college applications. Given the value of a record catch in today s credentialdriven world, the IGFA has been increasingly challenged to ensure its integrity. An IGFA world record is a singular achievement, never predictable and always the crown jewel of any angling career. Relatively few anglers ever earn more than one. As a result, they must be vetted with a rigor that supports their worthiness. In this, the IGFA s reputation is unsurpassed. While any top 50 ranking is always subjective, ours is not without some deliberate consideration (ok, and debate). The fifty all-tackle records featured in this book were chosen on the basis of outlandish size, popularity among anglers, distinctive beauty or appearance, and geographic diversity. However, throw in a fabulous storyline, and all other factors went out the window. In the end, our list includes thirteen freshwater, twenty-eight saltwater, and nine migratory fish in weights ranging from barely two digits to more than a ton. Finally, a word about conservation. In recent years, the nature of angling has changed dramatically for the better as more anglers release their trophy catches today than ever before. As longtime anglers ourselves, Flick Ford and I celebrate this movement. However, there is still great value both scientific and historic in continuing to document world record captures. Over time, such information provides valuable scientific data on growth, distribution, and the relative health of a given fishery. Ichthyological databases such as draw many of their species parameters along with much of their imagery from the angling world. Paradoxically, world record marks also set thresholds that discourage the taking of lesser specimens. Why keep an eightpound lenok other than to eat when you know the record is nine pounds? Today, far more fish are taken for table fare than for trophies, and rare indeed is the catch made solely for record purposes. We concur wholeheartedly with this trend and hope you do as well.

4 INTRODUCTION Anglers and mountaineers share a code of honor in reporting when, where, and how we caught a big fish or climbed a high peak. We re also alike in always seeking still larger fish and higher peaks. But whereas every mountaineer knows all the world s great peaks have already been climbed, every angler believes somewhere in the depths of some body of water even bigger fishes are waiting to be caught. That belief is the underlying theme of this wonderful collection of Flick Ford s watercolors depicting fifty world-record catches and framed by Mike Rivkin s lively narrative. Most people come to angling through a mentor and my brothers and I were lucky to have charter skipper, Tommy Gifford, as our guide. By 1950, Tommy was a saltwater legend who had led clients to over forty world records. He fished across the Pacific during and after World War II, but returned to the Atlantic, because that s where in the Virgin Islands he once saw a 2,000-pound blue marlin. When the first 1,000-pound black marlin was caught in the Pacific, Tommy claimed blacks are half the fighters that blues are. If a 1,000-pound black marlin were tied tail-to-tail with a 500-pound blue marlin, he declared, the black would be pulled backward so fast it would drown! He was devoted to blue marlin in the way that most anglers fiercely defend their favorite prey. So it s just as well Tommy would never get to read Mike Rivkin s story on blue marlin in BIG, where he observes that the two largest blues ever boated by recreational fishermen were caught, not in the Atlantic, but off Hawaii, and that one of them weighed 1,805

5 pounds, nearly 250 pounds bigger than the all-tackle-record black marlin. Both catches were disqualified as official world records, so Tommy would be consoled by the fact that the blue marlin all-tackle record remains in the Atlantic. Gifford understood that as youngsters we were happy with almost anything tugging on our lines. Still, he liked to fire our imagination with stories about a monstrous denizen of the deep that feeds on sea buoys encrusted with barnacles and swims around with so many broken lines and lures, the angler who catches him will be able to open his own tackle shop. Whenever one of us cast to a barracuda or amberjack lurking by a buoy and snagged the buoy instead, Tommy would shout, You ve hooked ole Brunosewampuscat! When our line popped or the snagged lure pulled free, Tommy would commiserate, Did you lose him? Well, better luck next time. Had I caught the Brunosewampuscat, I d have sought recognition for the catch from the International Game Fish Association. The IGFA and I were born in the same year, and in the 1970s, after I became a regular contributor to Field & Stream, I was influential in having that magazine s freshwater fishing records transferred to the IGFA so it could become the sole arbiter and custodian of all fair-caught angling records. In that same decade, IGFA president, Elwood Harry, began attending fishery management conferences around the world. His participation gave credibility to the word International in his organization s name. Elwood also spent countless hours with Dick Stroud, Frank Carleton, Chris Weld, and me in Washington, D.C., trying to get biocrats at the National Marine Fisheries Service to do their jobs. We suffered more defeats than celebrated victories, but Elwood established a precedent for the IGFA to play a major role in marine conservation. The seas are in sorry shape today compared to what they were half a century ago, but that they re not in worse shape is due to IGFA-affiliated sportsmen throughout the world using their collective clout to make a difference. GEORGE REIGER