MASSIVE NORTH CAROLINA COBIA
How’s this for a good day on the water: Lewis Boyd and his buddy Jimmy Hillsman are fishing on the Diamond Shoals off Cape Hatteras. Hillsman casts a bucktail and hooks a giant cobia. After a long fight the fish is ready to be boated. But before Boyd can gaff it he spots another bruiser just off the bow. He casts and hooks up. Boyd goes toe-to-toe with his own cobia and ends up landing a 113-pounder that sets the new North Carolina state record. By the end of their trip, the duo has caught seven fish and kept four, all 70-plus pounds.
To put this catch in perspective, Boyd’s fish measured 5 foot 7 inches with a 35-inch girth, while the angler came in at 5-foot-6. We’ll keep his waist size classified.–W.S.
HUGE GULF OF MEXICO TUNA The crew of the Miss Cathy recorded only one strike and never actually boated a fish, but they returned with a whale of a fish tale. Mike and Paul Ippolito, Pat Fitzmorris and Ron Roland trolled for two fruitless days south of Port Eads, La. Just as they decided to head home, something grabbed their lure and stripped nearly 750 yards from an 800-yard spool of 100-pound-test line. With Roland in the fighting chair, they battled the beast for five and a half hours. When they couldn’t pull it into the boat, they towed it for seven hours to Port Eads. In port, they used a crane to lift and weigh the creature. It was a 1,152-pound bluefin tuna, the biggest fish on record ever landed in the Gulf of Mexico.–John Felsher
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