tomatolord
Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2004
- Messages
- 548
Who knew? <br /><br /> http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/outdoors/story/2795459p-9236494c.html <br /><br />In the paper they have a picture - but in the onlne edition, its a big fish!<br /><br />Teen catches record tarpon<br />175-pound trophy tops N.C. mark<br /><br />By RICHARD EHRENKAUFER, Correspondent<br /><br />It's official: Teen tackles titanic tarpon for state record.<br />Jesse Lockowitz of Cape Carteret, a 16-year-old junior at Croatan High School, has raised the bar for N.C. tarpon fishermen by landing a 175-pound tarpon.<br /><br />He hauled in the giant fish from the Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier in Emerald Isle on Sept. 7, and the record has been certified by the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.<br /><br />Weigh-in on the certified scale at Carolina Bait and Tackle on the Atlantic Beach Causeway showed the fish weighing 175 pounds and measuring 83 inches in length and 42 inches in girth.<br />TARPON TRIVIA<br /><br /><br />The previous N.C. record tarpon also was landed from a pier. That record was 164 pounds, set by John Freeman in 1978, at the Indian Beach Pier, which was destroyed by Hurricane Floyd in 1999.<br /><br />RICHARD EHRENKAUFER <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /><br />"I knew he was big," Lockowitz said. "I watched him hit and he jumped three or four times. I knew he was pretty big, but I didn't think he was that big!"<br /><br />Sept. 7 was a light homework day, so Lockowitz got over to the pier, where he holds a season pass.<br /><br />"I got home around 3 o'clock or 3:30, and then my friend [Matt Anderson of Cape Carteret] came and picked me up around 4:30," Lockowitz said.<br /><br />Rigged with only a 20-pound test line on a Shimano Tiragra reel and baited with a bluefish big enough for dinner, Lockowitz floated the big bait out off the pier.<br /><br />"I caught him on balloons," he said. "The wind was from the east [that day], so it blew my balloon rig out to the west side of the pier."<br /><br />Balloon fishing is as effective as it is easy and can be done from the surf or a pier if the wind is blowing out and from a boat, too. It is used to get bait to a better fishing zone. The angler simply ties a couple of balloons to the line, a few feet above the bait, and lets the wind do the rest. On a pier, anglers are using a standard pier king mackerel rig with several feet of wire leader. The balloons can be tied to the line at the swivel where the wire line is attached to the monofilament.<br /><br />When a fish strikes, the balloons usually get pulled under the water and burst, and the fight is on.<br /><br />Lockowitz had quite a fight.<br /><br />"He hit about 150 yards away where I had my balloons out," he said. "I just had got them out where I wanted them, ... and then he hit."<br /><br />And Lockowitz went to work.<br /><br />"When I hooked him," Lockowitz said with a smile, "I saw the balloons split apart, and I started reeling, since he was running back at me. Before I could catch up with him, he jumped three or four times. When I finally caught up to him, I set the hook three or four times, and that's when he ran out about 400 yards."<br /><br />An hour and a half later, "I got him to the pier, and he was still a little bit green and tried to go under the pier, but I locked the drag down and got his head back around," Lockowitz said. "I didn't realize that he was that big, and I almost didn't want to gaff him, but when I realized how big it was, we put gaffs into him.<br /><br />"Mr. Keith [Chadwick], stuck him in the head with the first gaff, and then eventually we had to get two more gaffs in him with six people to pull him over the railings."<br /><br />The tarpon became Marine Fisheries property for study.<br /><br />Soon, the Lockowitz family will have a replica mount adorning a living room wall.<br /><br />As for the record-holder's future fishing outings?<br /><br />"I have NO idea," he said with a deep sigh. "I'm hoping this weekend. But school started about two weeks ago."