SUTTER COUNTY, Calif. (KMAX/KOVR) – A kid in California may have broken a record when he reeled in a white sea bass almost as big as him.
At just 13 years old, Julian Her could be a world record holder.
“I thought it was a shark when I first saw it,” Julian said.
The Rio Oso resident recently pulled a 63-pound white sea bass from the water over in Tomales Bay.
“I said, ‘Uncle Chong, is that a bite?’ And then the whole rod went down and we just all started screaming,” Julian said.
The eighth grader reeled in the fish while out fishing with his family.
“At first, we didn’t know. We thought it was just another halibut because that’s what we were fishing for,” Julian’s father, Rinna Her, said.
Julian, his dad, his uncle and his cousins were fishing when Julian started struggling to reel in his catch. At first, they thought he was being dramatic.
“We were just kind of like, knock it off, c’mon, just reel it in. And after a while of that, I thought well, maybe this is a bigger fish. And I should probably start recording,” Her said.
Her caught the moment they laid eyes on the white sea bass coming to the surface.
“A beast. Reeling in a beast. My arms were like hurting,” Julian said.
Julian said that although his uncle helped him hold the rod, he did all the reeling.
“It was pretty amazing. Like right there,” Julian said.
Now, they’ve sent in an application to the International Game Fish Association to see if Julian’s catch meets the criteria to hold the new juvenile world record.
Upon KMAX’s research, it looks like the last record for this fish was in 2002, at 59 pounds.
“We’ll see. You know, I told him, and he knows. And it wasn’t our goal. He knows, it’s OK if it’s not. We had a blast. We made core memories for life. And he already loved fishing, but he’s going to be a fisherman for life now,” Her said.
No word yet from the International Game Fish Association on the record
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