A close cousin of the amberjack, the fish is more than twice as heavy as the previous state record
Hayden Mundy holds the new Georgia state-record Almaco jack. Photo courtesy of Georgia DNR
Georgia angler Hayden Mundy and his crew got an early start on March 14, leaving Half Moon Marina at 1 a.m. They motored down the coastal river and headed 90 miles offshore, where around 6 a.m., they began -troll over the reef bottom in 180 feet of water.
“The weather and water were beautiful that day, the water was calm and clear,” Mundy, 24, said Outdoor life. “We trolled for a while, and hooked and lost a nice wahoo. Then we caught some blackfin tuna. Around noon the action slowed, so we decided to change tactics and head out and catch some bottom that fish.”
Mundy was accompanied by his friends Jake Lee, Hugh Robinson, and Lee’s four-year-old son, Finn. Fishermen put Lee’s custom-built 33-foot boat, the Limitation of Leegull, on a group of suspended fish they spotted on sonar. Instead of anchoring, they use the Spot-Lock feature on the trolling motor to keep them in position.
“We’re doing a coating that drops off in 190 feet of water, and I’m using a [8.8 ounce] NLO Fishing Scoop Jig,” said Mundy, a realtor and licensed charter boat captain. “I was taking my jig up in the water column and I was hitting 50 or 60 feet deep.”
Mundy fought the fish for about 10 minutes. He then brought it to the top where Lee grabbed the fish and pulled it aboard.
“It was a big fish, and I thought it was an amberjack, which we had caught that day,” Mundy explained. “But Jake is an experienced angler, and he thought it was almaco jack [which look similar]. We put it on the ice and went on fishing, and we caught a [bunch of] other small almacos.”
The four fishermen fished the rest of the day, returning to Half Moon Marina around 8 pm They were lashed after 19 hours on the water.
“Jake was sure my fish was an almaco jack, and it took an expert to tell them apart from amberjacks,” Mundy said. “We cleaned all our fish except for the big one I caught. The next morning, we took it to the Georgia DNR office in Richmond Hill to positively identify, weigh, and measure it.”
A state official confirmed that it was indeed an almaco jack weighing 19-pounds 10.53 ounces. It measures 37-inches long with a 21-inch circumference. The DNR announced that the Mundy’s jack was a new state record Monday, breaking the previous record, which was caught in 2023 and weighed just 7 pounds 7 ounces.
As Mundy noted, Almaco jacks are considered rare because few have been positively identified, and most fishermen mistake them for amberjacks. The only difference between the two species is the number of gill rakers and ray fins, which are difficult to count.
Mundy said he will have a replica mount made of his jack, and the record fish is still in his freezer.
“I’ll thaw it, fill it, and we’ll eat it,” he said, “because we don’t waste fish.”
