12-19-2006, 08:10 PM
AUSTIN, Texas - A 25-year-old Deer Park man set a new Texas state record for tarpon when he landed a 210-pound, 11-ounce fish off the Galveston Fishing Pier Oct. 4.
Jeremy Ebert was fishing for "bull reds" when something different - and obviously bigger - picked up his bait.
"We hooked the fish at about 8:30," Ebert said. "It made one big jump and then smoked off about 300 yards of line real quick. I got a good look about 30 minutes later, and I knew he was big."
Ebert fought the fish for about 45 minutes, and lifted it from the water with the help of a massive net and more than half-a-dozen other anglers.
"I grew up on that pier. I've fished it a lot," he said. "I saw my dad catch a tarpon off that pier when I was about 11 years old and it hooked me for the rest of my life."
A change in the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's fishing regulations last year dispensed with the $120 trophy tarpon tag and made it legal for an angler to keep one tarpon over 80 inches. The 80-inch minimum length was settled-on as the threshold for a fish that might beat the longstanding state record of 210 pounds. That fish, an 86.25-inch tarpon, was caught in November of 1973 by Tom Gibson.
Ebert donated the fish to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. TPWD biologists took DNA samples and the fish was displayed at the Coastal Fisheries "ice table" at the annual TPWD Expo in Austin Oct. 7-8.
As a result of Ebert's catch, TPWD has proposed increasing the minimum length limit for retention of a tarpon to 90 inches.
Jeremy Ebert was fishing for "bull reds" when something different - and obviously bigger - picked up his bait.
"We hooked the fish at about 8:30," Ebert said. "It made one big jump and then smoked off about 300 yards of line real quick. I got a good look about 30 minutes later, and I knew he was big."
Ebert fought the fish for about 45 minutes, and lifted it from the water with the help of a massive net and more than half-a-dozen other anglers.
"I grew up on that pier. I've fished it a lot," he said. "I saw my dad catch a tarpon off that pier when I was about 11 years old and it hooked me for the rest of my life."
A change in the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's fishing regulations last year dispensed with the $120 trophy tarpon tag and made it legal for an angler to keep one tarpon over 80 inches. The 80-inch minimum length was settled-on as the threshold for a fish that might beat the longstanding state record of 210 pounds. That fish, an 86.25-inch tarpon, was caught in November of 1973 by Tom Gibson.
Ebert donated the fish to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. TPWD biologists took DNA samples and the fish was displayed at the Coastal Fisheries "ice table" at the annual TPWD Expo in Austin Oct. 7-8.
As a result of Ebert's catch, TPWD has proposed increasing the minimum length limit for retention of a tarpon to 90 inches.