Woman gives up glory for stunning catch
The beast on Molly Palmer's line was set to land her a world record, and thousands in cash.
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– 8 hours ago
The woman reeled in a half-ton marlin, but required some help at the end, so she won't get credit or the prize money
There is no way Molly Palmer can extend her arms wide enough when telling people about the size of fish she recently caught, off Hawaii.
While fishing in The Big Island Invitational Marlin Tournament, Palmer, 28, reeled in a 12-foot long fish, weighing 1022.5 pounds, according to The Associated Press.
It was well over the previous record of 950 pounds, for a woman using a 130-pound line, but Palmer is never going to get the credit, the money, or the record.
She is too honest.
Palmer, her captain, and her crewmates, put up about $9,000 to enter the tournament, and are saying goodbye to potential winnings because Palmer didn't land the catch by herself.
According to International Game Fishing Association rules, Palmer needed to reel it in, without assistance, for it to be counted as a valid catch.
Everyone on the boat could have kept their mouths shut, and no one was likely to find out, but they immediately disqualified themselves.
"I didn't come here to set world records.
"I didn't even really come here to win money," she tells AP.
"I came here to catch fish, and that's just what we did."
She said it wasn't a question of whether or not to cheat, because the goal was to land the catch.
When she was having difficulty, her crewmates came over and helped pull the monstrous fish aboard.
"We don't have officials on the field, like you do in baseball, or football, or anything like that," says tournament organizer, Jody Bright, to AP.
"Everybody's playing on the open ocean playing field, and since there's nobody there checking to see if you stepped out of bounds, or any of that sort of stuff, there's a whole lot of opportunity to do things nobody would know ."
Boat captain, Neal Isaacs, told AP Palmer tried to hang on as long as she could, but the fish stayed in deep waters, and the crew had to get her out of the chair, before she passed out.
According to him, the issue wasn't the size of the fish, or Palmer's physical limits, but the angle at which it was being reeled in, which prevented Palmer from doing it on her own.
No, that is not right at all. Yeah, I know rules are rules, but the largest marlin to ever be caught was caught, which should make it a record!
ReplyDeletei agree with you, jerry...
Deletenow way in hell a 128 lb person, male or female, could horse a 1/2 ton ANYthing into a boat