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Stephen Humphrey was on the charter boat “Wrecker” off the coast of Ocean City, Md., as he trolled for yellowfin tuna weighing 100 pounds or more. Then something much lighter took the bait.
Humphrey, 38, of Ellicott City, didn’t know what was on the line, but he knew it was something different from what he had been looking for and reeled it in. Soon, he recognized the fish as a great barracuda and called the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to measure it in hope of entering a state record.
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Humphrey’s Oct. 6 catch of a 13-pound barracuda established a species record in the Atlantic division of the Maryland state fishing records program. Chris Stafford of Cherry Hill, N.J., also established a species record with his Sept. 20 catch of a two-pound pompano dolphinfish.
“It’s fun seeing what you see out there,” said Humphrey, who is a general contractor. “I think a lot of people take for granted how closely we are intertwined with nature and how close we live to some pretty magnificent creatures.”
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Maryland officials say there have been stray barracudas spotted before and suspect pompano dolphinfish have been caught and overlooked because of their similarities to a regular dolphinfish.
These species are among the fish more commonly found in southern waters, but warming ocean temperatures have led to more sightings of southern fish in northern waters, including spotted sea trout, cutlassfish, cobia, red drum and sheepshead, said Erik Zlokovitz, a recreational fisheries outreach coordinator with the state’s natural resources department.
“We think that conditions will be conducive to seeing more of these fish in the future with climate change along the East Coast,” Zlokovitz said. “They could be showing up in greater numbers.”
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Last month, Stafford, 53, took his boat about 50 miles off the coast from Ocean City to Poor Man’s Canyon — an underwater gorge that is a hot spot for deep-sea fishing. He was searching for white marlin but quickly pivoted to fishing for the school of 60 to 100 dolphinfish swimming around the boat.
Stafford, who works as a contractor for boats, used chunks of squid as bait and caught more than 20 fish, put them on ice and headed back to the marina. Someone cleaning the fish realized one of the dolphinfish looked different from the rest, and the group reached out to Zlokovitz.
As Zlokovitz relayed the different traits of the pompano dolphinfish and what to look for, Stafford said he realized he was probably talking about the fish they were examining. As the Department of Natural Resources puts it, this dolphinfish has a “broad, squarish tooth patch, a body depth which is more than 25% of its standard length, an anal fin that is not concave and does not have sickle-fin shape, as well as a dorsal fin ray count which is lower than the dorsal ray counts found on common dolphinfish.”
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“It was exciting,” Stafford said. Fishing has been a family tradition for Stafford since childhood — one that he has passed along to his daughter, who is now a first-year at Northeastern University in Boston.
“We have been pretty competitive when it comes to fishing and just about everything,” he said. “I’ve been sending her pictures up to Boston to gloat saying that I’m the new state record holder.”
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