Anglers haul in a whopper
 

By Joel Luna
The Facts
Published September 9, 2009
It was a record that stood for 30 years until a group of anglers shipped out of Freeport on Friday night on the Minnow-Soda.

Shayne Babich of Waller, along with Jim Stewart, Anthony Lopez, Daniel Miers and Francisco Padua corralled a 326-pound broadbill swordfish, which surpassing the previous 317-pound catch by J.P. Bryan Jr. in 1979.

“This is what we do,” Babich said of his three-hour fight with the fish. “Our plan was to go out and catch a record, that was our intent on this trip.”

The group hooked on to the swordfish a little past 9 p.m. Saturday, and by midnight Babich hauled the fish in.

“In order to set a state record there can only be one guy that handles the rod,” Babich said. “We hooked him in about 30 minutes and knew we had a big fish when he started fighting us. I did get a bit tired, but two weekends ago I caught another big one. But this was the biggest that I had ever caught.”

Babich and his group were at the East Breaks area, about 100 miles out.

“This is a secret little spot where there are some big ones, but we’ve never been able to hook one,” Babich said.

“In about four or five years we’ve been trying to land one here and we finally did.”

According to Lopez, the catch not only beat the state record in Texas but also in Louisiana and Mississippi.

“The only other state to catch one bigger than this one in those 30 years was in Alabama,” Lopez said. “About an hour into the catch, I got a glimpse of it and he looked about 10-feet long.

The total measurement was 141 inches and 55 in girth. All estimated, it was about 335 pounds.

“And as soon as we caught him, we called the trip right there and headed back to Freeport.”

The broadbill was caught with dead fresh squid. When he was opened, the anglers found a squid about 4- to 5-feet long in his stomach.

“That is what he was feeding on, so we used the proper thing to catch him,” Lopez said.

“The fish was cut for meat before it rotted once we returned, and a sample went with the Texas Parks and Wildlife.”



Fishing records can be found on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Web site.



Joel Luna is the sports editor for The Facts. Contact him at 979-237-0160.

wheres the pictures?

on 2cool bluewater board

Fishbone you know how it is here: if you do not have a picture MOST PEOPLE on this site will not believe you! BTW, I am not ONE of those MOST people!

he didn't say that he didn't believe him dip****

It aint got nothing to do with me not believing him.........I would just like to see pictures of the record breaker fish. BTW Fishbone I do believe you. ASR, I hope you are not implying that I am one of those people.:shaking:

i cant imagine fighting a fish for 3 hours

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/swords/

check this out

I just copied the story from our paper on line. :p

thanks for the pic angler

yea, i watched a few episodes of swords, its the same thing over and over. One episode was enough lol

And he did not say he did believe him dip s_ _ T!

Bay no I am not. If I was I would say. Just seems that some on this site always want to see a picture to believe it.

ASR I dont need to see pictures to believe it...........I just wanted to see them just so I could see how big it was. I really dont believe any privious post of mine even hinted that I doubted his post.