Two longtime Massachusetts fishermen initially thought they were reeling in a shark, but instead they caught a 1,200-pound marlin, believed to be the largest of its type ever hauled in on the East Coast.

Damon Sacco, a seasoned constitution fishing boat captain from the Bay State had been fishing for hours with his shopper on Wednesday when he caught a glimpse of a big fin breaking the water’s floor about 100 miles off Cape Cod, MA.

At first, Sacco thought it was a huge shark but then he “got a better look at it and thought, dang, that thing’s pointed” and assumed it was “too big for a marlin,” he recalled.

The constitution boat captain initially thought it was a shark. AP

The Atlantic blue marlin weighed a whopping 1,260 kilos. AP

To his shock, the fisherman had caught a 1,260-pound Atlantic blue marlin that measured in at over 11 toes in size alongside his shopper, retiree Water Chapman.

Chapman, a lifelong fisherman from Plymouth, Mass., fought on rod and reel with the marlin for about three hours and said it was unquestionably the largest fish he’s ever fought on a line before. 

Meanwhile, Sacco said his function for most of the beautiful journey was to “drive the bus around and yell at people.”

The marlin’s invoice left a couple of holes in the constitution boat’s remodel which Sacco considers “war marks.”

After hauling the mammoth billfish back to shore in Falmouth, Mass., where an excited crowd was ready, the fishermen believe it is the largest Atlantic blue marlin ever caught off the East Coast.

The monumental billfish measured in at over 11 toes in size. Katie Curran via AP

“People fish their entire lives and never come close to a catch like this,” Falmouth native Katie Curran said. 

“Hats off to Captain Damon Sacco and the crew on the catch of a lifetime,” Curran quipped. 

The Massachusetts marlin weighed just 142 kilos shy of the world file for an Atlantic blue marlin caught in 1992 off the coast of Brazil, according to the International Game Fish Association data. 

More exceptional, however, is reeling in such an monumental catch off New England, according to Walt Golet, director of the University of Maine Pelagic Fisheries Lab.

Walter Chapman and Damon Sacco believe it is the largest fish to be caught off the East Coast. Jimmy Fee via AP

“I don’t suspect there will be a whole lot of blue marlin caught in the Atlantic in general that are going to top 1,200 pounds for the next several years,” Golet said.

For most of the yr, the water in the Northeast is too chilly for marlin fish, making the window to catch such a giant one extraordinarily slender, said Golet, who also works as an affiliate professor at the college’s marine sciences faculty.

The 1,260-pound fish was caught in Atlantis Canyon, an underwater canyon on the edge of the continental shelf about 100 miles off Cape Cod.

The blue marlin was caught on Sacco’s constitution boat on Wednesday. Jimmy Fee via AP

Golet said the blue marlin, which are extremely migratory fish, are seasonal guests to the space.

The fish’s head was transported to the UMaine lab to decide its age but Golet speculated it could be in the vary of 25 to 30 years previous. 

The meat of the over one-thousand-pound fish was divided among about a dozen individuals, according to Chapman, who is at the moment trying up recipes to put the meat to good use.

“I wasn’t going to eat a 1,200-pound fish all by myself,” Chapman joked and said some of the meat is in all probability destined for clam chowder. 

With Post wires