Man sets state record with Graysby Grouper catch

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (WITN/Gray News) - A man in North Carolina has set a state record when he caught a fish off of the North Carolina coast.

The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries announced that George Dale, of Wilmington, North Carolina, caught the Graysby Grouper (otherwise known as Cephalopholis cruentata) outside of Masonboro Inlet in about 100-feet-deep water on May 31.

The agency said Dale caught the fish with a heavy jigging rod and a Penn Slammer III reel, using cut bait on a floral carbon rig with an 80-pound braid. The grouper weighed two pounds and three ounces, WITN reports.

Division of Marine Fisheries staff says in order to establish a state record, a fisher must send an application to them that they then review. The fish must be exceptionally large for North Carolina waters and within a reasonable range of the world record, which was caught off Texas in 1998 and weighed two pounds and eight ounces.

For more information on the state records of fish, go to the division’s State Saltwater Records webpage.

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