Thomas Woo of Wilmington recently landed a white trevally weighing nearly 20 pounds off Wrightsville Beach, establishing a new state record for the species.
Woo landed the 19-pound, 3.2-ounce white trevally, or Pseudocaranx dentex, and also known as striped jack, on May 8. He was about 55 miles offshore, south of the New Hanover County town in 150 feet of water when the fish struck his slow-pitch jig.
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The fish measured 32.2 inches fork length, which is from the tip of the nose to the fork in the tail, and had a total length of 37.8 inches.
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries announced the new record Wednesday, explaining in a press release that, prior to this, there were no state records for this species in the United States.
The International Game Fish Association world record was set in 1998 in Japan.
The fish was weighed by division staff at the Wilmington office. A genetic sample was collected for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, as this species is rarely encountered by recreational anglers off the North Carolina coast. When it is, the average size is only 16 inches.
For more information on state record fish, go to the division’s state saltwater records webpage or contact staff at saltwater.citations@deq.nc.gov.
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