A Pennsylvania angler fishing a shipwreck about 14 miles off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland recently caught a new Maryland state record gray triggerfish that weighed 6 pounds and measured 20 inches in length.
Logan Liddick was dropping clams and squid to the wreck on Sept. 25. He had caught multiple sea bass and a few smaller triggerfish when the big one took a clam rigged on a two-hook top-bottom rig.
“There was a solid dead weight,” said Liddick. “This is a good fish.”
Liddick’s catch broke the previous record of 5.6 pounds, held for almost a year by Ocean City resident Mike Glyphis. Staff at the Ocean City Fishing Center certified the weight. A Maryland Department of Natural Resources biologist verified the species. The state recognizes the gray triggerfish in its Atlantic Division for state records.
It was an impressive catch for waters off of Maryland, but triggerfish grow larger. The IGFA all-tackle world record was caught by Jim Hilton out of Murrell’s Inlet South Carolina in 1989. Hilton’s fish weighed 13 pounds, 9 ounces.