"It's impossible to age a rockfish once it has matured just by looking at it," said Kristen Green, groundfish project leader for Alaska's southeast region.
The oldest aged rockfish, a rougheye, was 205 years old and measured 32 inches. Liebman's fish measured 41 inches, which encouraged unsubstantiated claims of a 200-year-old fish.
Shortrakers mature by age 10 and reach their peak size shortly after.
Liebman, who'd caught a huge shortraker in a prvious visit with Angling Unlimited, asked his skipper to help him and his party target big rockfish again. They were fishing in 850 feet of water when he hooked the record fish.
The fish was weighed at 45 pounds on the boat, so Captain David Goss, knowing the fish would lose weight every hour out of the water, raced back to get the fish officially weighed by Fish and Game officials |
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