Fishing captain ‘pulls rabbit out of his hat,’ resulting in a state record

Fishing was slow on Talking Trash Charters off Maryland until the skipper worked his magic.

“We had a long morning trolling with no bites,” London J. Anthony told the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “Later in the day, Captain Chris Little…pulled a rabbit out of his hat and put us all on a pile of tilefish.”

And one of them was a state record.

On what was a double hook-up on blueline tilefish, Anthony caught a 20.6-pounder that measured 37.25 inches; the other fish was 24 inches.

“I felt like I was reeling in three cinder blocks,” Anthony said.

The captain turned away from trolling and had his clients start deep-dropping a cut ballyhoo chunk bait using a hand-cranked conventional reel. The location was Poorman’s Canyon off Ocean City.

It turned out to be a good choice, as Anthony’s fish surpassed the old state record of 20.0 pounds caught by Robert Purcell in September 2012 at Norfolk Canyon.

Anthony’s fish was weighed on a certified scale at Crabs to Go in Berlin.

Maryland Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission chair Scott Lenox and DNR recreational fisheries coordinator Erik Zlokovitz confirmed the species and the record.

More from the Maryland DNR:

The blueline tilefish is a bottom dweller found in water 240-780 feet deep from New Jersey to the Campeche Banks of Mexico. It is frequently found in the same habitat as groupers and snappers, preferring irregular bottoms with sand, mud, and shell hash. It has been found to burrow head-first in cone-shaped sand piles.

Photo courtesy of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.