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[Churak]

Fishing tale easy swallow: Norwegian lands halibut too big for his boat

OSLO, Norway (AP) - Unlike many fishermen, Harald Skoge didn't have to exaggerate the size of his latest catch. The 146-kilogram halibut was too big for his nearly nine-metre-long boat.



Skoge, who fishes as a hobby, was trying his luck off western Norway with a simple hook and line Wednesday when he thought something had gone wrong.


"At first, I thought the hook had gotten stuck at the bottom," the retiree was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of his local newspaper, Sunnmoersposten.


Slowly, he was able to roll in the line, and realized something very, very big was on the end. When the giant halibut broke the surface, he realized it was too big to haul into his boat.


"I had to tow it to land," he told the newspaper.


After three hours of towing the fish, he was able to deliver it to a local fish processing plant, which weighed and bought the catch.


According to Skoge, the fish's head alone weighed 19 kilograms, more than many anglers can claim for their whole catch.