South Florida fisherman Ryan Alvarez caught a giant snakehead on April 23 that’s been certified as a new world record. The International Game Fish Association highlighted the record fish in a Facebook post Sunday. It noted that Alvarez’s great snakehead (known locally as a bullseye snakehead) weighed just over 17 pounds and is the new all-tackle world record for the species.
Alvarez did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his fish, which replaces the previous world record set by Corey Nowakowski. (Nowakowski had previously held seven of those world records, as reported in Anglers Journal.) According to the IGFA’s post, Alvarez was fishing a canal in Pompano Beach when the snakehead hammered his Z-Man chatterbait. He landed the fish “after a short but exciting fight,” the IGFA added.
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At this point, most record-seeking anglers would’ve sought out a certified scale at a fish market, grocery store, or some other shop. But because of Alvarez’s proximity to the IGFA headquarters building, which lies just 16 miles south of where he was fishing in Pompano Beach, he brought the big snakehead there to have its official weight of 17 pounds 1 ounce certified in person.
Alvarez killed the invasive fish in the process, which was just fine by fisheries officials and conservation groups, many of whom encourage anglers to harvest every snakehead they catch. Unlike some other states with invasive snakehead populations, however, where anglers are required to kill them, Florida regs allow snakeheads to be released alive — as long as they’re put back into the same waters where they were caught.
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And although the fish have been villainized by some for the effects they can have on native fish species, snakeheads have become a favorite target of many anglers — especially those on the East Coast, where they can be found in good numbers from Pennsylvania and New York through Virginia and Maryland and down to Florida. Most of these fish are northern snakeheads, and not bullseye snakeheads, which are only found in the southern reaches of the Sunshine State.
In a Facebook post Alvarez shared in May, he included a photo of him with the fish outside the IGFA headquarters in Dania Beach. He noted the fish’s total length of 37.5 inches, and explained in the comment section that he first weighed the bullseye snakehead on his Boga grip, which he said was “accurate by half a pound.”
Alvarez knows more than most when it comes to IGFA regs and weighing record fish. As the record-keeping organization was proud to point out in its recent post, Alvarez was a former camper at the IGFA Fishing Summer Camp. Based in Florida, the week-long camps help introduce 7- to 14-year-old kids to basic fishing techniques, while also teaching them about fisheries science and conservation.
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