World Records for Almaco Jack
Jeff Kang Current world-record Almaco Jack for men—117 pounds (53.1 kilograms) by Jeff Kang The fish was taken at a seamount off of La Paz, popularly known as El Bajo. The fish was taken on June 30, 2000, at approximately 11:30 a.m.. Visibility was approximately 40 ft and the water temperature was 80 degrees F. The fish was speared using a modified Riffe Bluewater gun. The gun was modified with full length Steve Kang weighted sidestocks. Overall weight of the gun including shaft and weighs approximately 18 lbs. The shaft was a standard Riffe 3/8" x 72" shaft with a stock Steve Alexander 5" tri-cut slip tip was used. Five 5/8" bands was used. The recovery system that was used was a progressive multiple floatation system, similar to those used by commercial broadbill fishermen. Vinyl coated 1/16" 7 x 7 stainless cable for shooting line, connected to a 50' Bungee floatline connected to a 11 liter Ron Allen Divinicell float. An additional 50' of bungee was connected to the rear of the Ron Allen float and terminated with a Riffe inflatable float with a dive flag. The Bungee floatline used was a 9/16" OD x 5/16" Bill Kitto formulated rubber tubing with 500 lb test parachord inside in a ratio of 2.25:1. I was diving ahead of the current of the El Bajo highspot when I spotted several large tuna from the surface. I dove down and leveled off at about 15 ft and the school of tuna had already swam out of range. I waited there and saw a fish swimming behind the tuna and pointed the gun towards its direction. I noticed that it was not a tuna, but the largest Amber jack that I ever saw. I waited until the fish came within range and took a 20" shot the fish hitting the fish mid-body about an inch below the backbone. The speartip did not exit the other side, but dislodged and engaged somewhere inside the body. The fish took off taking down the Rob Allen float and I held onto the second bungee and fought the fish for approximately 20 min. Every time I was able to get the fish close to the surface, the fish would come alive, taking all the retrieved line back down again. I was able to use the Riffe float as additional buoyancy by laying on top of it and pulling the floatline in. The fish finally expired and I was able to get a hold of its gillplace and pull the fish up. No second shot was necessary and none was used. Several underwater pictures of me and the fish were takne before I swam the fish over to the panga and handed the fish to the panga operator. The fish was taken back to the Cortez Club whole. Unfortunately, the Cortez Clud did not have a scale capable of weighing the fish whole. The only scale available was a 60 lb chantillion spring scale. The scale was a new scale and was in good working order. The fish was cut up in three pieces. The two fish slabs were removed from the fish and the head carcass was weighed at 57 lbs. The fish slabs were weighed individually at 32 and 28 lbs. The total of the 3 pieces is 117 lbs. During the cutting up of the fish, a lot of internal organ parts and liquid was lost, but these were not taken into consideration of the weighing. We estimated that the fish would have weighed over 125 lbs if the fish were to be weighed immediately after spearing. The dismantling and weighing of the fish was witnessed by Andrea Tomba, Toto (the Panga operator and person who cut up the fish), Steve Kang, Jeff Kang, Jack Ikuwa Ku, Masahiro Mori and Bart Hwang. ******************************************* Scott Merlo Previous world-record Almaco Jack for men—101.6 pounds (46.1 kilograms) by Scott Merlo
******************************************************* Meritorious Award for Almaco Jack for men—112 pounds (51.0 kilograms) by Bernard Finnerty It is ironic how faith draws us to different encounters-especially in the world of freediving. My name is Bernard Finnerty and I have been a “spero” for thirty years. My friend Edwin Ortiz (Eddie), has been diving for forty years. Eddie and I are from Eastern Long Island, New York and are both former New York State Spearfishing Champions. Eastern Long Island is best known for Montauk Point and Southampton (The Hamptons). Montauk Point is famous for its world record Great White sharks, Bluefin Tuna, and Stripe Bass, and Southampton for the home of the rich and famous. Eddie and I were invited to Western Australia to go diving in Exmouth with Alister McNeil in May, 2001. Unfortunately, Alister was not able to get the time off from school and we had to cancel. This led Eddie and I to contact Andrea Tomba of the Cortez Club, who invited us to participate in the “Bluewater meet 2001,” however, this too was cancelled so we decided to go to La Paz, Mexico in hopes of finding Bluewater hunting. According to Andrea Tomba, we were the first New York freedivers that ventured into this area. It appeared to us that this was in fact true, or at least it seemed that way. There were approximately 15 other “Bluewater Hunters” present also. They were all from the Los Angeles and San Diego area. We were curious about the different guns, floats and techniques, but I am sorry to say nobody was forthcoming with information or even willing to talk to us. As one of the divers said, “Oh you guys just shoot Stripe Bass and Blackfish.” Eddie and I were going to be at the Cortez Club for seven days. On our first day, Javiar, our twenty two year old Captain was great at looking after us, and took us to a place called Arena forty miles south of La Paz. It was a great experience for us to acclimate our equipment and to see how the currents worked. That day Eddie and I shot one Pacific Amberjack each weighing about 30 lbs. We were not interested in shooting reef fish and were only interested in hunting pelagic fish. The other divers got a 60 lb Amberjack, an 80 lb Grouper, and some small Amberjack. On the second day, our combined seventy years of diving between the two of us allowed us to observe that every hour the current would change direction enabling us to take note of the pelagic fish concentrating around the two underwater pinnacles. In addition, we noticed a type of gold fish that were a precursor to us seeing larger Amberjack. That day Eddie shot three Amberjack 40-50lbs. and I shot two that were in the 30-40lb. range. July 3rd, 2001, our third day, Eddie and I decided to go back to Arena with Javiar. The current was stronger this day, and the visibility clearer: from 30-60 ft. . It was two days before the full moon. Eddie and I discussed the fact that the outer pinnacle that came up to the 30 ft. mark and was surrounded by 80 ft. of water was the location with the larger Amberjacks. However, it was extremely hard to locate this pinnacle. This day Eddie hit the pinnacle on his first attempt and shot a beautiful Pacific Amberjack weighing 75 lbs.
Javiar, our Captain, had learned by now that we were constantly
evaluating the current and even though there were four other Pandas with
other divers following each others lead, we would continuously go further
out and come in at different angles (Eastern Long Island’s currents are
constantly 3 knots and the key is to work with the current and outsmart
the fish). . I had two guns with me on that July 3rd, my Collins Bluewater that I picked up in Australia last year, and my Rob Allen 130 cm with two ⅝″ rubbers with a flopper head and a 7mm shaft. The Allen gun had an effective range of 27 ft. Since the current was moving faster this day, I chose the Allen gun with 80 ft. of float line, and 25 ft of bungie attached to a small Rob Allen float with a Riffe inflation buoy. It was our fourth drift of the morning and Eddie (who is fluent in Spanish), explained to Javiar that we had to go farther up current and at a greater angle if we wanted to hit the outer pinnacle just right. Eddie had aligned up to the pinnacle and we both jumped into the water. Eddie’s detachable head had come off in the water and he lost valuable time. I moved ahead and made two forty and fifty foot dives. After my second dive, as I was ascending I was able to make out the dark shape of the pinnacle 60 ft in front of me. I had time for two quick breaths before I dove and leveled off at 35 ft. I drifted by the pinnacle and there were no fish. However, on the other side of the pinnacle I came across a school of large Amberjacks that I thought were possibly 50-70 lbs. As I glanced over the school with a visibility of 40 ft. I saw behind the school of fish a large head and then a large tail. There were two large Amberjacks in front of the large head and I could not see the fish in its entirety-only the big head. I knew the Rob Allen had an effective range of 27 ft but due to the light shaft I was apprehensive about penetrating the head of the fish). I had been down for approximately one minute and now had leveled my gun at the large head but I knew I had to get a shot behind the gills. The two big fish in front of the large head kept in sequence with the head. All of a sudden, the whole school turned right and for one second the total body was visible and I took the shot between 21 and 25 ft. I knew I had hit the large fish because the handle of the gun was ripped out of my hand (The Rob Allen is attached to the bungie at the handle). At this point the handle of the gun sped away, and I turned and followed my float line toward the surface. To my surprise, the Rob Allen float coming down while I was half way up, and the pinnacle was still in sight when I knew I had to stop the float and not let the fish wrap itself around the pinnacle; It was pure adrenaline that helped me to carry the float back to the surface. I grabbed onto both floats and was pulled for three minutes above and below the surface. Javiar saw that I was going against the current and chased me with the Panda. I started pulling in the float line but every time I got 30 ft of line he would pull me under and I had to give up what I had retrieved. This went on for fifteen minutes until I finally had the bungie in my hand, only to have him pull me down 20 ft for 45 seconds when I finally had to give up the bungie. I started pulling the float line again, (my depth gauge a “Mares Apneist” kept a record of how many times I was pulled underwater: a total of eleven times). Even though I was in 80 ft of water, I was afraid the fish would find a rock, and cut the mono or bungie. At this point my biceps were full of lactic acid, but I knew that this was a special fish (I estimated around 90 lbs), so I just kept pulling. Slowly I started to pull in more line and eventually I had the bungie and was able to see the fish. I pulled him up to me and attempted to grab the eyes, only then did I realize the fish was as tall as me; it was 6 feet tall. I put my hand in one gill and grabbed my knife from my forearm and to my chagrin, the 4 ½ ″ blade could not reach the brain of this fish. I could not reach my 9 ″ Riffe blade that was on my calf. There was now an audience of three Panda’s with their Captain’s cheering me on to win the struggle with this tremendous fish. I was really in trouble now because the fish was thrashing so much, and I was trying to keep his head above the water. This made it difficult to stabilize my body and keep control of his head simultaneously. I braced my elbows against my ribs and the fish gave one last attempt to dive and I heard a crack and felt a shock hit my body. I did not know what had happened but the Amberjack stopped fighting and I swam the fish to my Panda and handed the head of the fish to Javiar. Javiar attempted to pull the fish into the boat, but he was not able to do so. In order to get the fish into the boat I pushed the tail over the transom. This was when the realization of how large the fish actually was first came to me. Lying in the boat, the Amberjack took up the width of the Panda, and dwarfed the 75 lb. fish in the cooler. Javiar picked up Eddie who was disappointed that his head had come off and he had missed the opportunity near the pinnacle. The Panda’s were in contact with La Paz and the Captains of the boats had told the Cortez Club that a world record Amberjack was caught. Andrea Tomba wanted the fish brought back home to the dock. However, Eddie and I wanted to dive some more. Eventually, the Chief Captain of the Panda’s gave Javiar strict orders to get the fish back home. At the dock, there was a crowd of people waiting and everybody was guessing how many pounds the fish weighed; estimates ranged between 90 to 130 lbs. I estimated the fish to weigh 110 lbs. I told Andrea that if this were Australia, they would wager money on the size of the fish. After about two hours the fish was weighed, but the scale was attached to one rope so the fish kept on spinning around. The scale was registered by the Mexican government but kept fluctuating from 51 kg to 53 kg due to the spinning. At the time I did not know that the Bluewater record was 51.7 kg for a Pacific Amberjack. In fact, Jeff Kang, the record holder was there as well as Terry Mass and John Manley to witness the catch. At the weigh-in the fish was still spinning and there is still controversy over whether the fish was 51 kg or 53 kg. I have pictures of the fish on the scale when it is not spinning but before this goes to press I had not received the enhanced photographs to show the accuracy of the Amberjack’s weight on the scale. More important then the size of the fish, however, is the lessons learned from this great diving experience. To begin with, I learned that people wanted to talk to the guy who caught the “World Record” Amberjack, not just because he’s a nice guy, but because he caught a big fish. Another lesson learned is that Ted Lougher of Manley, AU from whom I purchased the knife may be able to kill Dog Tooth Tuna with is 4½ knife, but it will not kill a 115 lb Amberjack. The final lesson learned is that it takes faith in oneself to continue to dive for thirty years, and the crack that I heard while I was holding onto the gills of the fish were my three lower ribs breaking on my right side. Since I am a Physiotherapist I was able to take care of the ribs, but from now on I will use a 9˝ knife to dispatch my fish!***************************************************** Previous world-record Almaco Jack for men—65 pounds (29.51 kilograms) by Frederic Guttin
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