Back in July, Connor Stone of Southport, North Carolina caught a beautiful puddingwife wrasse while fishing off the coast of his hometown. According to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Stone’s fish is the biggest puddingwife ever caught and recorded in the Old North State. And it outweighs the current International Game Fish Association (IGFA) world record by three ounces.
“Stone plans to apply to the IGFA for the world record,” reads a press release issued by NCDEQ on September 25. “The current certified world record Puddingwife Wrasse weighs 3-pounds, 8-ounces and was caught off Key West Florida in 2003.”
Prior to announcing Stone’s July catch, the NCDEQ did not have an established record for puddingwife wrasse. “In order to establish a new category, an application must be submitted and a department review must determine that the submitted fish is an exceptional catch,” NCDEQ public affairs officer Patricia Smith tells Field & Stream. “This puddingwife wrasse definitely fits that description.”
According to the press release, Stone caught the fish using a Fiblink Signature rod and a Fin-Nor LTC16h reel spooled with 50-pound braid. He was using live squid for bait when he hooked into it just 10 miles off the coast of Southport. It weighed 3 pounds, 11 ounces and measured 18 inches from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail.
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A popular aquarium fish, the puddingwife wrasse—also known as the sandreef wrasse—inhabits reef ecosystems throughout the western Atlantic Ocean and down into the Caribbean Sea. According to the Smithsonian Institute, the North Carolina coast is at the far northern end of the puddingwife’s range.
