Fisher Beats The Drum Slowly, Lands 76-Pound 'Sea Monster'

A fisherman knows he’s got something when the local bait shop’s scale can’t hold the catch.

For Maria Pardo of Long Valley, that’s exactly what she encountered during a Jersey Shore fishing trip in May.

Pardo was with her fiancé, Steve Thompson, aboard his 23-foot Striper-Seaswirl, the “Sunset Oasis,” in Little Egg Inlet out of Holgate in Long Beach Island. The duo was hanging around in about 11-feet of water and had been successful snagging sharks and “monster blue fish,” Pardo said.

Thompson dropped his line and felt a big pull, figuring it was another shark with its tail wrapped by the way it was spinning and feeling like dead weight.

For the next 20 minutes, Thompson fought the sea creature and passed the rod to Pardo, who put in her work for another 20 minutes. When she was able to bring it closer to the boat, they noticed something strange.

“I was yelling, ‘what the heck is that?’” Pardo said. “It looked like a prehistoric sea monster!”

Using a gaff to bring it into the boat, the couple realized it was a black drum fish, part of the grouper family. They brought the catch over to Jingles Bait & Tackle, but the shop owner’s scale wasn’t big enough.

After a call to the Marlin Tuna Club in Beach Haven, the black drum was taken to a larger scale, and weighed in at 76.5 pounds and 52-inches in length. The state record for a black drum is 109 pounds, caught in Delaware Bay in 2008.

Pardo and Thompson enjoyed the fruits of their labor as well.

“(It) tastes yummy, no fishy smell or taste,” Pardo said. “We had to use a Sawzall to cut it up before we could filet it. Scales were the size of potato chips.”

When these fishers tell their tales of triumph, no exaggeration will be needed.

Photos Courtesy Maria Pardo.