“Filleted Fish Cannot Be a Record”: The Loss of a World Record Dorado
OutdoorHub Reporters 07.22.15
When it comes to submitting a world record fish to the International Game Fish Association (IGFA), there are a lot of rules. Arguably the most important is that the potential record has to be weighed on a certified scale in the presence of disinterested witnesses. Without that, the fish’s weight is just hearsay. Unfortunately for Brian Lindsey, who claims to have caught an astounding 102-pound dorado off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, nobody bothered to tell him that.
Lindsey and a group of fellow anglers were fishing from the Pisces Sportfishing charter boat Shambala last week when he caught the massive fish. When the fishermen returned and started chatting about the size of the dorado, nobody would believe it. According to the charter company, staff at first thought that Lindsey, being a first timer, had mistaken a marlin for a dorado.
“So we asked what color his fish was to which he replied ‘yellow’, intrigued, we asked to see pictures. Brian’s dad, Tracy, a long time Pisces angler, whipped out his camera and proceeded to show us a massive dorado which looked big in photos but enormous in the video,” an employee wrote on the company’s blog.
You can see video of the fish below:
As it turns out, Lindsey and his friends weighed the fish on a hand scale and then sent it off to be filleted. What they did not know at the time was that if the dorado was truly 102 pounds, it would certinaly give the current world record a run for its money.
“One of the staff called the dock to tell the fillet guys NOT to cut that fish up, but we were told it had been filleted as quickly as possible due to the hot weather, so that the meat would not spoil,” stated the Pisces Sportfishing blog.
A quick search of the IGFA record book confirmed that the all-tackle record for dorado, also known as mahi-mahi or the common dolphinfish, belonged to a 87-pound fish caught by Manuel Salazar in Costa Rica. That record has stood for almost 40 years.
Lindsey’s dorado carcass was then measured and analyzed by a group of visiting biologists, who speculated that the live weight of the fish was around 94 pounds.
“The jury is out still, if the weight is true, this fish would have been the all tackle world record, but a filleted fish cannot be a record,” stated Picses Sportfishing.
At least Lindsey will have a sizable portion of dorado meat as a consolation prize. The angler said that despite the success of the fishing trip, the loss of a possible world record is a downer.
“I’m not sure why the captain did not recognize the gravity of the fish’s size. He was a super nice guy and a great fishing captain,” Lindsey told GrindTV. “It was very frustrating, however.”
