12-year-old catches a menacing world record marlin

Twelve-year-old Stone Fornes and his fishing mentor Elliot Sudal left Nantucket Harbor on August 16 expecting a quiet, relaxing day of fishing. Instead, the rising seventh-grader got the thrill of a lifetime when he reeled in a potential junior world-record white marlin that tipped the scales at 118.5 pounds.

It was supposed to be just a relaxing day on the water for Fornes and Sudal. They left the harbor at 7:30 a.m., late compared to the rest of the fleet, which left well before sunrise. Expecting to return with maybe a few mahi, the pair set off with only half a tank of fuel and a bag of ice, Fornes says. Outdoor living.

Once they were out on the water, Fornes, who spends his summers on Nantucket with his family, realized it was a perfect day for marlins.

“When there are big waves, you can’t see their fin on the surface. You need perfect glass, and that’s exactly what we had,” Fornes says. “You could see the bottom in about 20 feet of water. It was the best visibility I’ve ever seen off Nantucket. I thought if we were going to catch a marlin, it would be today.”

The two fishermen set out about 10 miles south of Nantucket on the No regrets, MomThe Stone family’s Invincible 39-foot Open Fisherman center console, looking for marlin fins. Fornes says they saw at least seven white marlin that day and baited several of them without hooking them. Then they saw a huge fish swimming about two feet from the boat.

“When I first saw this marlin I thought it was a mako shark. It was so big,” Fornes said. “This was my first time fishing for marlins and I didn’t know how big they are.”

He ran to rig a rod while Sudal slowly steered the boat to give Fornes a good presentation.

“I threw the bait right at him, which scared him because it was a big bait, and it splashed in the water. I thought he was gone,” Fornes says. “He probably only went about 10 feet. Then the fish comes back. I realize my line is coming out fast, and it’s not the baitfish.”

Fornes counted to ten to give the marlin enough time to eat his bait, made sure his drag was set correctly, then closed the bail on his spinning reel and set the hook six times. The fish was on the hook and they both knew it was a big one.

“We were freaking out,” Fornes said. “Elliot was going crazy. I was shaking. We knew it was the craziest fish of my life.”

Fornes fought the giant white marlin for 90 minutes while fishing standing up (instead of sitting on a fighting chair). It’s an impressive feat for a 5’10” high school student, especially considering the fish on the other end of the line outweighs him by several pounds.

“The fish never went deeper than 15 feet in the water. It was always jumping, gulping air, swimming on the surface,” Fornes says. “It was just a crazy acrobatic fish.”

While Fornes was busy battling the monstrous marlin, Sudal struggled with the boat, trying to prevent the fish from wrapping itself around the line of the engines.

“Elliot has caught thousands of fish and he says this was the hardest fish he’s ever caught,” Fornes says. “We ended up burning out our thrusters cutting donuts in the water to keep this fish out from under the boat.”

After an hour and a half, Fornes wrestled the tired fish close enough to the boat for Sudal to get a gaff in its tail. With the gaff in the fish, Fornes held his rod with one hand and opened the tuna doors with the other. The two pulled the monster into the boat and then tried to hold on to the struggling marlin. Sudal stood on the fish’s beak while Fornes sat on its tail.

“It lifted me three feet in the air,” Fornes said. “It’s insane how strong it was, even after an hour and a half of fighting.”

Once the fish was on the deck, Fornes said he was in shock. They didn’t know what to do next, but they weren’t even thinking about world records.

“I even laid down next to it to make sure it was a keeper,” Fornes says, laughing. It was the first swordfish he ever caught.

It wasn’t until they were heading home that Sudal started thinking about how big the marlin was. He googled “junior world record white marlin” once the boat was close enough to shore to get a range. That’s when Sudal discovered the record was 102 pounds.

“He realized we could hold the record on that boat, so he stepped on the gas,” Fornes said.

With only a partially melted bag of ice and some damp towels, Fornes tried to keep the potential junior world record marlin as cold and wet as possible while Sudal raced to shore. When they reached the no-wake zone, Sudal texted everyone he could think of. A crowd met them at the dock with over 200 pounds of ice and offered to help weigh the fish as quickly as possible.

“I’m so thankful for all the people who helped us,” Fornes said. “This wouldn’t have been possible without them.”

In order to qualify for world record status, the marlin had to be weighed on a scale certified by the International Game Fish Association. Finding one proved to be a lot more difficult than they had anticipated. Because Fornes’ fish was losing weight with every passing minute, it took two hours to finally find one. When they finally got the fish on a certified scale, it weighed in at a whopping 118.5 pounds.

Now Fornes is asking for the world record to be recognized, a lengthy and complicated process that involves photos of the fish, the gear used to catch it, the scales used to weigh it, and the angler with the fish. The angler must also submit a sample of the leader, hook, and line.

“The marlin world record is the biggest deal in fishing. You have to do everything perfectly or they won’t give you the record. You have to take videos and photos of every fin, dot and detail,” Fornes says. “We have to fill out a lot of paperwork. We’ve been working on it for about five days now, but I’ve had a lot of help.”

Because Fornes’ white marlin had a broken beak in the past, they even had to track down a certified ichthyologist to verify that the fish was not a hatchet marlin, a type of swordfish that looks like a white marlin but is actually a spearfish. Fortunately, Dr. Greg Skoma, an experienced marine fisheries biologist, examined the fish and confirmed that it was a white marlin.

Assuming everything is completed and filed correctly, it could be another six months before the IGFA makes Fornes’ record official. Fornes says he’ll be killing time by catching tuna while he waits.

Read more: 1,145-pound blue marlin breaks Alabama, all-state Gulf of Mexico records

Matthew Sheehan of Boston, Massachusetts, currently holds the position junior world record for the 102-pound white marlin he caught in 2011 when he was 11. The largest white marlin was caught in 1979 by Brazilian angler Evandro Coser. He caught the 181.9-pound monster while trolling with dead bait.