Jeff's near-record Lingcod weighing 68-1/2 pounds FISH of A Lifetime by Jeff Breland The rod was in my hands again and every foot of line we had gained, I lost. The fish had unlimited power and I was tired. I was also afraid of breaking the line! Knowing the consequences I would endure, I quickly gave the rod to Nick Amato. He started to gain back some of the line that I had lost by really putting the screws to the fish. He was pumping the rod and reeling as fast as he could when with a giant clank, the 80-pound test line broke about 30 feet from the surface. Much to our disappointment we didn't get to see this fish. We could only guess at its size. Captain Greg told us three other clients had brought up a 315-pound halibut the previous season in 45 minutes with a lot less effort. For the rest of the trip any mistake made was called an "Amato." We were all devastated by the lost fish, but decided to go back over the same halibut hole and am I glad we did. I dropped my line down as fast as I could and immediately felt a tug. I thought I had hooked into another monster-sized halibut. This fish started to spool my reel and then stopped and shook from left to right very rapidly, unlike the halibut. This action immediately re-energized us and we all quickly forgot about "the one that got away." This fish was strong and fought hard, but I did not give up my rod. I was going to fight this one myself; and fight it I did. We couldn't figure out what I had hooked until about 40 minutes later when you could finally see it come up from the bottom. It was the biggest lingcod anyone had ever seen. It was so big I could put my shoe in its mouth without it touching either side. I don't know how my hook managed to grab hold in that huge mouth. Despite its incredible ugliness, we all took pictures for proof of its gigantic size. I wondered if Steven King would like to see a picture as inspiration for his next book. Looking at this fish made what's left of my hair stand on end. On the handheld scale in the boat the fish weighed 69 pounds. I could hardly wait to get this fish on an official scale. When we got back to the docks my fish drew immediate attention. Normally the tone on the docks is very competitive between fishing services and it was fun to see the reaction of other fishing crews when they saw my fish. After making sure it was dead, some even asked if they could get their picture taken with it. You don't see fish like this very often! We took the lingcod to town to find a certified scale. After being out of water five hours (and with an empty stomach) it officially weighed in at 68 pounds, 8-ounces. We quickly discovered that to be considered a State of Alaska Trophy Fish it only had to be 45 pounds. We have since found out the IGFA world record is 69 pounds. I missed it by only 1/2 a pound. Too bad my fish hadn't used that huge mouth to eat something before I caught it! This had been an incredible day.