LEWES – DNREC’s Division of Fish & Wildlife has confirmed a new state record in the Delaware Sport Fishing Tournament: a 79-pound, 6.4-ounce cobia, caught in the Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 10 by John Burbage of Ocean View. The fish was 56½ inches long and had a girth of 28¼ inches.

Burbage was fishing alone about a mile and a half off the Bethany coast when he caught the record fish. He hooked the cobia by sight casting a whole Atlantic menhaden (bunker) and fought the fish for an hour and 10 minutes before finally landing his trophy.

The record catch was weighed at Hook’em & Cook’em, an official Delaware Sport Fishing Tournament weigh station near Rehoboth Beach, and confirmed by Fish & Wildlife Natural Resources Police officers Sr. Corporal Oran White and Officer First Class Timothy Koebel.

For a listing of all state fishing records, please visit the Division of Fish & Wildlife’s Delaware Fishing Records webpage.

More information on the Delaware Sport Fishing Tournament is found in the 2018 Delaware Fishing Guide. The guide also is available in printed form at DNREC’s Dover licensing desk in the Richardson & Robbins Building, 89 Kings Highway, Dover, DE 19901, and from license agents throughout the state.

• Follow the Division of Fish & Wildlife on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/DelawareFishWildlife.

Media contact: Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

Vol. 48, No. 244

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