A Massachusetts charter fishing crew may have reeled in a piece of East Coast fishing history after landing a 1,260-pound Atlantic blue marlin, a massive catch believed to be the largest of its kind ever brought ashore along the U.S. East Coast, according to reports from AP News and the New York Post.

The fish, which measured more than 11 feet long, was caught Aug. 19 about 100 miles off Cape Cod by charter captain Damon Sacco and his client, Walter Chapman. According to the International Game Fish Association, the marlin fell just 142 pounds short of the all tackle world-record Atlantic blue marlin caught off Brazil in 1992.

What began as a routine offshore fishing trip quickly turned into a grueling, three-hour battle that ended with a crowd gathering at the docks in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to watch the giant billfish being weighed.

Sacco said he initially thought the enormous fin cutting through the water belonged to a shark.

“Then I got a better look at it and thought, dang, that’s pointed,” Sacco told AP News. “But that’s too big for a marlin.”

Rare catch in New England waters

The giant fish was hooked in Atlantis Canyon, an underwater canyon along the edge of the continental shelf where Atlantic blue marlin occasionally migrate during the warmer months.

Landing a fish of that size in New England is especially unusual because the region’s waters are only warm enough to attract blue marlin for a brief period each year, Walt Golet, director of the University of Maine’s Pelagic Fisheries Lab and an associate professor in the university’s School of Marine Sciences, told the AP.

Golet said researchers expect to study the fish’s head to determine its age, estimating that it could be between 25 and 30 years old.

‘War marks’ and a catch to remember

Chapman, a retired lifelong fisherman from Plymouth, fought the marlin on rod and reel while Sacco maneuvered the charter boat, Castafari.

“My role for most of the adventure was to drive the bus around and yell at people,” Sacco told the AP.

The fish’s bill punched holes in the back of the boat, damage Sacco described as “war marks.”

After returning to Falmouth, the crew was met by spectators eager to see the enormous catch.

“People fish their entire lives and never come close to a catch like this,” Katie Curran, who watched the weigh-in, told the AP. “Hats off to Captain Damon Sacco and the crew on the catch of a lifetime.”

Chapman later shared the meat with about a dozen people and joked that some of it may eventually end up in fish chowder because, as he told the AP, “I wasn’t going to eat a 1,200-pound fish all by myself.”

Reporter Anthony Thompson can be reached at ajthompson@usatodayco.com, or on X @athompsonUSAT.