| World-record King Mackerel for men—32.7 kilograms
(72-pounds) by Jairton Querino The fish was spearded at the Gandola' 2003
Tournament in Brazil. With still one hour to the end of the Gandola Tournament at Cabo
Frio, I dove at Comprida Island at it's East point. Diving down, I missed the rock I was
aiming at, diving well off to the side. When surfacing, I found the king mackerel in the
middle of a silver porgy school in mid water. I swam in its direction and waited for the
fish to trun around.I speared it in the head and after 20 minutes, I second-shot it and
boated it with difficulties.
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Previous world-record King Mackerel for
men—53.0 lbs. (24.04 kilos) Michael Vogel, September 1987, St.Thomas USVI
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Cameron Kirkconnell
Meritorious Award King Mackerel for men—57.8-pounds (26.2
kilograms) by Cameron Kirkconnell
With all of the fishing pressure down in the Florida Keys and
Miami area I was a bit skeptical as to the chances of success on this particular trip out
of Homestead this past week. Since I am only in the states about a month every year though
I never turn down a chance to get out in the water and this going on this day proved that
luck follows those that push theirs.
We were nearing the end of the day diving (May 4, 2004) and I was a bit over it and
just trying to relax and spend as much time down as I could. I found a spot in 40 ft of
water that had a few decent reef fish and a school of small mackerel so I settled in and
shot a few fish before calling the boys over to get theirs. I had just shot a big Cero
Mackerel that I was sure was a world record and boated him thinking I had my fish of the
day for sure. Watching Aquilles dive down I saw a good sized King mackerel swim directly
behind him and away before I could get him to turn and see it or get down to shoot it
myself. My very next dive I was laying on the bottom when a 10 ft hammerhead came right up
to me and I had to push him off with my gun to make him realize that I was alive and not
on the menu. For the next 45 minutes he stayed around and made himself quite a nuisance
but I was determined to stay around to get a shot at some of the other fish that were
still there.
Laying on the surface breathing up I look down to see the same mackerel swim by again
down on the bottom and I make a quick but silent dive and approach the rapidly escaping
fish. Just as he is almost out of range I fire the Rabitech Apex 140 cm Carbon and watch
as the shaft enters the the fish mid body on the left side and exits his belly after only
penetrating 6 inches of flesh. I release the gun and watch as the 45 ft of ¼ inch
Polypropylene float line, 10 ft of bungey and then my 7 liter Rob Allen float fly past me
at a 45 degree angle.
On the surface I scream at Rolando who catches up with me and hands me his gun,
uncocked as I have demanded, and we continue to chase the fish. Each time the float
returns to the surface I know that the hammerhead or one of the many Bull sharks in the
area has taken my trophy and my heart sinks. AS we move into deeper water I begin to worry
about the fish taking the float down and never returning so I connect the 75 ft Rob Allen
Float Line (also connected to a 7 liter Rob Allen Float) from the other gun to the first
float. By this time Aquilles has caught up with us and I trade the second gun for his
uncocked 130 Rabitech Stealth fitted with a Rabitech Reel with 200 feet of 400lb Dynema.
By now we have been swimming hard for 15 minutes and the fish is not slowing down in
the least. Watching the line intently I notice it begin to rise a bit and figure he is
either being chased to the surface by the sharks or tiring and the angle of the shot has
sent him higher in the water column. Either way I know that this is my only chance and I
swim at 120% leaving the other two guys in my wake until I can see the fish at 50 feet and
prepare to make the hardest dive of my life down to him. Still swimming way above my max I
try to no avail to breath up and just dive. Making it to 45 feet I place a shot right
through the fish’s back just as he makes another run and the first shaft falls out.
Now he has slowed considerably and I take back the other gun from Rolando, cock it and
dive to send the final shaft through the head of the fish.
Safely in my hands I send the knife home and scream at the top of my lungs with
excitement at having landed this beautiful fish.
JC brings the boat over and Aquilles takes a number of pictures with me and the fish in
the water before we get in the boat and repeat the process. Now the problem arises of what
the hell to do with it. We have but one small bag of ice and the 170qt cooler still leaves
a foot and a half of the fish sticking out with no way of closing it.
Back ashore we clean the other fish and buy bags of ice to keep the fish as cool as
possible. I cannot find any scales since it is already 7 at night so I take the fish with
me and the next morning go to the International Game Fish Associations Headquarters in
Dania Beach and have their official weighmaster certify the weight and document it for
authenticity.
The scale reads 58.6 lbs and with the deduction of the .8 lb tailrope the corrected
weight is 57.8 lbs.
The fish had lost a good bit of weight through the night but still maintained enough
weight 18 hrs later to make it worth weighing.
The boat we were out on is owned by Rolando Veloso. The other diver in the water was
Aquilles a dentist from Ft. Lauderdale as well. For both of the mackerel shot this day I
told the other guys in the water to not touch anything and made them hand me guns uncocked
and then loaded them myself before shooting the fish. The fish was not touched by anyone
but me until it was handed into the boat dead at the end of the picture taking session. |
