BigStriper.TightenTheDrag
Biggest striped bass ever caught and recorded on video? There may not be an official record category for that distinction — but it’s doubtful a larger bass has ever been brought to the boat while a camera was running.
Capt. Blaine Anderson, who operates Anderson Guide Services, caught a striper estimated at just under 75 pounds on Wednesday, May 23, fishing around the Niantic area in Eastern Long Island Sound. Unfortunately, his best efforts to release the fish alive failed. Still, it was a helluva bass.
Anderson had just caught several footlong porgies and began drifting the baits over the first rock pile he came upon.
“It didn’t take long for my scup to get nervous,” Anderson writes on his blog. “A few seconds of frantic dancing was quickly followed by a solid THUMP!”
A terrific fight ensued — the latter portion of which was caught on video — and several minutes later, the monster fish was boat side. Here’s the video from the encounter:
“I knew it was big,” Anderson writes, “but until I actually grabbed the lower jaw and tried to hoist her over the rail, I had no idea how truly massive she was…”
After the fish bottomed out his 60-pound Boga scale, Anderson put it on the tape. She stretched 55 ½ inches in length and had a girth of 32 ¼ inches. When calculated against the formula IGFA uses (girth x girth x length / 800), she equated to a whopping 74 ¾ pounds.
Despite his best efforts to release the big bass, Anderson says he was not able to revive it.
“In the past, I have spent upwards of 20 minutes working a fish for release,” writes Anderson, who estimates he turns loose 95 percent of his stripers. “But it was clear after five minutes that this fish was done. The dorsal was down, the pectoral fins tucked in…I don’t enjoy killing big fish like this one.”
Still, it was quite a catch — and very likely the biggest striper ever caught and recorded on video.
