It was almost 7 p.m. on July 3 when Cooper Clark hooked a fish that he hoped was a bluefin tuna. He was trolling offshore with his uncle Robert Clark and his cousin Ashton Clark in Robert’s 27-foot Sailfish center-console boat named “Baby Girl.”
They were trolling at the famed “Jackspot,” a well-known reef area 21 miles southeast of Ocean City, Maryland, that’s noted for good catches of white marlin and bluefin tuna.
“We had some friends who’d caught some bluefins in that area a few days before we went out,” Cooper tells Outdoor Life. “We were trolling with 50-wide spool reels and caught a bunch of big bluefish and a kingfish. Then about 7 p.m. I hooked a strong fish I thought was a small bluefin tuna.”
Cooper says the fish fought hard, taking line, and he had no idea it wasn’t a bluefin until he got it near the boat and Ashton gaffed it.
“He brought it aboard and I was disappointed it was a false albacore and not a tuna,” says Cooper, age 19, of Ocean City, Maryland.
They put the fish on ice, intending to use it later as bait because false albacore are not noted as choice table fare. They quit fishing at 8 p.m. and almost were back to their home port in Ocean City when Cooper started thinking about the fish he’d caught.
“I checked the state records using my cell phone, and learned that the record was caught in July 2025 and was 26 pounds,” says Cooper, a sophomore accounting major at Salisbury University.
Learning that their fish could be a state record, the crew iced Cooper’s catch and weighed it the next day at Sunset Marina. There it was inspected and weight certified by Maryland DNR biologist Gary Tyler. The 36-inch-long fish was 28.2 pounds, and now has been accepted as a new state record for the species.
False albacore or little tunny are Atlantic Ocean pelagic gamefish common from New England to Brazil, South Africa to Great Britain. They are noted for being tough fighting fish.
The IGFA all-tackle world record is 37 pounds. The IGFA 50-pound line class world record for the species is open, meaning that if Cooper used 50-pound test line on his 50-wide fishing reel, his catch may qualify as an IGFA line class world record if he decides to enter it.
“The fish lost some weight from the time I caught it until it was weighed the next day,” Cooper says. “It regurgitated several large 6-inch squid while on ice, and it lost some body fluids, too, from gaffing.
“I’m checking into having a mount made of the fish, because a state record fish doesn’t come along every day.”
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