Woman lands 335-pound halibut her first time fishing

 A woman who had never been fishing before now has an angling tale of a lifetime as well as a shot at capturing the $15,000 top prize in an Alaskan fishing derby after landing a 335.7-pound halibut.

"Oh my God, it was huge," Annette Gutierrez, 47, told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.  "It was insane to get such a very big fish my first time."

At 7-feet, 3 1/2-inches, the halibut was almost two feet taller than the 5-foot-6 Gutierrez, and 142.3 pounds heavier than the fish that had been topping the leaderboard for the Valdez Halibut Derby, which runs through Sept. 4.

Gutierrez, from Gila, N.M., works as a truck driver for a Fairbanks, Alaska, construction company during the summer. Her 12-hour, 7-day-a-week schedule doesn't allow for much down time, so when she and her fiance, Steve Perkins, who works for the same company, had a few days off together they decided to head to Valdez and go fishing on a friend's boat on July 2.

"I’ve never been anywhere near the ocean or big boats like that in my life," she said. "Where I’m from in New Mexico is a little, tiny ranch town with a little river running through it."

Gutierrez hooked the lunker after only an hour of fishing, and was chided by Perkins and friend Mike Chambers for taking so long to bring the fish in -- having no idea what was on the end of her line.

"It took me about 30 minutes to bring it in," she said. "They kept laughing at me and telling me I had a 30 or 40 pounder."

It took all three of them to get the huge flatfish over the boat’s railing once it was subdued, Gutierrez said.

By the time they reached the Valdez dock, four hours from where they had been fishing, word had gotten out that a derby-contending big fish was coming in.

"We got in and there were people everywhere," Gutierrez said. And it wasn’t until she saw the fish hanging that Gutierrez realized what she had caught.

"I had no clue what I did. I don’t think it even hit me until they hung it up and I said 'man this is big.'"

-- Image of Annette Gutierrez next to the 335.7-pound halibut she caught courtesy of Valdez Fish Derbies and Valdez Chamber of Commerce.

Comments

[Ice Coolers]

That's really huge! How on earth did you do that? Bet that was really fun especially when people saw your catch. Not in my wildest dreams did I wish i can catch like that. But that was fun though.