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Josiah VanFleet once caught a 3-pound flounder.
He was 6 years old, and his grandparents took him on a party boat to fish.
“I actually won the pool for the largest fish on the boat,” recalled VanFleet, now 38. “I made like $60.”
Well, he has another big catch under his belt.
The father of four went fishing on Feb. 24 off the coast from Nags Head and reeled in a 9½ foot bluefin tuna.
“Definitely, on a personal level, it’s the biggest fish I’ve ever caught,” said VanFleet, who lives in Toano and has a bathroom and kitchen remodeling business.
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He said the U.S. Coast Guard helped measure the fish when he docked his boat at the Oregon Inlet, putting it at an estimated 1,000 pounds. They also said the fish’s girth around its belly was about 83 inches.
North Carolina’s current state record is 877 pounds for a bluefin caught in 2017, according to the Department of Environmental Quality, but an estimated weight is not enough to get into the record books.
VanFleet caught the fish and loaded it onto his 22-foot Grady-White boat about 45 miles offshore. It took seven adults and a second boat to get the job done, he said. His 9-year-old son, Zeke, was there too.
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