Written by: David Mangum, Shallow Water Expeditions
Guide David Mangum hoists aboard the huge redfish, as Dorry Ballantyne celebrates.
All photos by Fitz Coker
On Nov 19th, I was fishing Fitz Coker and Dotty Ballantyne, who were both using 12-pound-test IGFA tippets. It was late in the day, and we were looking for a redfish greater than 34 pounds. The water was dingy and light was low, so we couldn’t see all that well. But we took a shot at what looked like a large fish. Dotty hooked the fish, cleared the line, and began to fight. During the battle, we had glimpses of the fish but couldn’t gauge the true size. Twenty or thirty minutes later, I carefully grabbed the leader and put the Boga Grip into the mouth of the fish.
Three separate scales showed the fish to be 40 pounds.
It wasn’t until I hoisted the fish up on the deck and got a look at the girth that I realized how big the fish was! We then weighed the fish on two different Boga Grips, one of which was IGFA certified, and then on a scale at a nearby natural Gas platform as per IGFA regs. Astonishingly, the fish weighed 40 pounds. This will be the largest redfish ever submitted by a woman angler to the IGFA. The next day we also caught a 26.5-pound redfish on 4-pound test, breaking the standing record!
David Mangum operates Shallow Water Expeditions, in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. He also fishes the Louisiana Marsh.
Mangum measures the beast for the IGFA record book.
Where was the fish caught?
Way to go Dotty and Fitz and Dave! I’m seeing a lot of camo on the runways these days … glad to see your au-courantness was not left at home.
Perk and Laurie
was it released?
Dear orvis,
Was this fish released? If not why would something like this go on the blog? You preach conservation and catch and release, only to show this? What because someone wanted to have their name in a recorded book? I find this to leave such a bad taste in my mouth. Please respond back to this to let the fly fishing community let us know what happend.
New rules allow photographic evidence with length/girth measuents to calculate weight very accurately. Along with certified scales and certifed/pretested leaders to comply with IGFA rules. This has lead to many recorded records that are released unharmed.
Mark and Josh, yes, this fish was a released.