Massachusetts Fishermen’s Remarkable Catch: A Massive Blue Marlin

Two fishermen from Massachusetts had an unforgettable adventure on the Atlantic. After what seemed to be a day without luck, Damon Stacco and Walter Chapman reeled in a gigantic Atlantic blue marlin off Cape Cod, initially mistaking it for a shark. The marlin is likely the largest ever caught off the East Coast.

Their day took a turn when Stacco noticed a massive dorsal fin while they were fishing 100 miles from shore. “Am I really seeing this?” he questioned on Instagram. “A blue hue flashed beneath it,” he recounted, realizing it was a marlin, not a shark. The excitement was palpable as they battled to bring the fish in.

Photographic evidence captured by Jimmy Fee shows Stacco and Chapman with their catch in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The fish weighed 1,260 pounds on a certified scale, making it a potential record for the state and the Western Atlantic. However, it falls 142 pounds short of the world record, a 1,402-pound marlin caught off Brazil 34 years ago.

Chapman did most of the heavy lifting, while Stacco guided the vessel, Castafari. Jokingly, Stacco referred to his role as merely “driving the bus around and yelling at people.”

Walt Golet from the University of Maine Pelagic Fisheries Lab remarked on the rarity of such a catch in Massachusetts, due to typically cold waters. The fish, estimated to be 25 to 30 years old, had its head taken to the lab for further study.

Catching a blue marlin of this size in the Atlantic may not be common for several years,” Golet observed.

The marlin’s “war marks,” as Stacco called them, left holes in the boat’s transom.

The fish will be shared among about a dozen people, Chapman noted, humorously acknowledging the impossibility of consuming the entire 1,200-pound fish on his own.

Brie Stimson, a writer based in Los Angeles, is known for covering entertainment and breaking news for Fox News Digital.