A German visitor put locals to shame when he hauled in a halibut weighing 175 kilograms and measuring 240 centimetres. The tourist, Andre Rosset, caught the fish in the Súgandafjördur fjord in the Wesfjords during the last day of fishing of a week long sea-angling tournament.
Local fishermen praised the catch, claiming it to be the largest caught by sea-angling in Iceland. “They tell me this is a European record,” Rosset proudly confirmed.
There is a written record of a halibut weighing 266 kilograms landed in 1935 but it was not caught while angling. More recently in Djúpivogur, southeast Iceland, a fisherman caught a halibut weighing 181 kilograms. He wasn’t angling either.
The catch took Rosset by complete surprise. “I’ve unsuccessfully tried fishing halibut for many years and then I catch this monster,” Rosset said. “It caught the bait and then a two-hour-long fight began. After a lot of struggling I managed to get the halibut up close to the boat, but then I lost it to the bottom again. The fight continued and finally I won.”
A total of 80 Germans entered the tournament on a trip organised by Hvíldarklettur ehf. Travel agency in Sudureyri.