{"id":30214,"date":"2020-03-04T10:30:29","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T15:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=30214"},"modified":"2020-03-04T11:04:17","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T16:04:17","slug":"dorchester-county-angler-catches-record-longnose-gar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2020\/03\/04\/dorchester-county-angler-catches-record-longnose-gar\/","title":{"rendered":"Dorchester County Angler Catches Record Longnose Gar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prehistoric Fish Tips Scales at 18.3 Pounds<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"Photo

Samson Matthews with his record longnose gar. Photo courtesy of Doug Ruth.<\/p><\/div>\n

A Hurlock fisherman is the new Maryland state Chesapeake Division record holder for<\/span> longnose gar<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>with a catch that weighed 18.3 pounds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Samson Matthews, 22, was fishing for blue catfish with a friend March 2 near El Dorado Bridge along Marshyhope Creek. After about 10 minutes of fishing\u00a0 in 20 feet of water with small chunks of gizzard shad as bait, Matthews felt a strong pull, a tight line, and lots of thrashing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t even know what it was at first,\u201d Matthews said. After pulling the fish into the boat, both anglers knew they had a potential record breaker.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maryland Department of Natural Resources biologists certified the species as longnose gar — <\/span>Lepisosteus osseus<\/span><\/i> — a prehistoric fish distinguished by its long nose and hard scales. The catch was officially weighed at Kool Ice and Seafood in Cambridge, which confirmed the fish narrowly beat the <\/span>2019 record<\/span><\/a> held by David Confair.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

After the weighing, Matthews released his record longnose gar back into Marshyhope Creek.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maryland maintains <\/span>state records<\/span><\/a> in four divisions \u2013 Atlantic, Chesapeake, Nontidal, and Invasive \u2013 and awards plaques to anglers who achieve record catches. Fish caught from privately-owned, fee-fishing waters are ineligible.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Anglers who think they have a potential record catch should fill out the <\/span>state record application<\/span><\/a> and call 443-569-1381 or 410-260-8325. The department suggests the fish be immersed in ice water to preserve its weight until it can be checked, confirmed, and certified.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prehistoric Fish Tips Scales at 18.3 Pounds A Hurlock fisherman is the new Maryland state Chesapeake Division record holder for longnose gar, with a catch that weighed 18.3 pounds. Samson Matthews, 22, was fishing for blue catfish with a friend March 2 near El Dorado Bridge along Marshyhope Creek. After about 10 minutes of fishing\u00a0  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,11],"tags":[2922,5174,4950,3069],"class_list":["post-30214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-fisheries","tag-dorchester-county","tag-longnose-gar","tag-marshyhope-creek","tag-state-fishing-record"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30214"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30223,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30214\/revisions\/30223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}