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Santa Ana man reels in 'catch of a lifetime': a 482-pound halibut



Santa Ana's Jack McGuire, 76, stands next to his 482-pound Pacific halibut caught off the coast of Gustavus, Alaska, on July 3.



SANTA ANA – Jack McGuire knew he had something special on the end of his line when he heard Captain Rye Phillips yell.
McGuire, 76, and three of his friends were on a weeklong fishing trip near Glacier Bay, Alaska, when the experienced fisherman hooked a fish that felt as big as any he’d ever caught.
After a 40-minute battle, it was Phillips who caught the first glimpse of the massive Pacific halibut being pulled to the surface.
“All of a sudden he (Phillips) said, ‘Oh my god. This is a monster,’” recalled McGuire, back at his home in Santa Ana. “And this is a captain who has seen a lot of fish.”
This fish – when landed – weighed in at 482 pounds and measured 95 inches. It trumped the 459-pound Pacific halibut caught off of Alaska’s coast in 1996, considered the world record.
“That’s a catch of a lifetime,” McGuire said.
But the catch didn’t meet International Game Fish Association world-record regulations: The halibut was shot, then harpooned before it was hauled aboard.
The largest recorded non-IGFA Pacific halibut ever pulled in was a 495-pounder caught near Petersburgh, Alaska.
“Last year, we caught 57 fish over 200 pounds so it’s pretty common to see bigger fish here,” said Phillips, who guides the Alaskan Anglers Inn’s five-day fishing excursions out of the fishing village of Gustavus. “But not common to see a giant one like that.”
The 26-year-old captain took the group near the mouth of Glacier Bay on July 3 when the barn-door halibut, fisherman vernacular for a halibut weighing more than 300 pounds, hit McGuire’s line at a depth of about 130 feet on a hook baited with sardines and octopus brain.
“The moment I set the hook I hollered, ‘I got a big one!’” McGuire said. “We get in the back of the boat and we get in this battle.”
Phillips helped McGuire to pull in some of the line during his lengthy bout with the quarter-ton fish – another reason the catch didn’t meet IGFA world-record standards. It took three people to pull the fish out of the water and into the boat after it’d been pulled next to the boat, shot and harpooned.
McGuire applauded Phillips’ decision to shoot the fish, to keep it from flopping around and hurting someone, even if that was one of the reasons it wasn’t a world record.
“I wasn’t planning to catch a world record,” McGuire said with a laugh.
McGuire is tanned with weathered skin and an easy smile. Born in Omaha, Neb., McGuire and his family moved to Long Beach when he was 5. A year later, on a camping trip to Lake Mary in the Sierra Nevadas, he went fishing for the first time.