When Sherry Countryman felt a tug on her fishing line yesterday, she knew she had hooked a big fish. But she didn’t know just how big until she weighed in her catch to learn she set a state record.
On Thursday, Ms. Countryman caught a 19.9-pound false albacore while fishing the 81st Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby from a boat with her teammates. The fish is the heaviest albie in Massachusetts history and rocketed Ms. Countryman to the top of the derby leaderboard.
The previous state record was set during the 1990 derby by Island angler Don MacGillivray, whose albie weighed 19.39 pounds.
As word circulated Thursday evening about Ms. Countryman’s extraordinary catch, a small crowd gathered at derby headquarters in anticipation of her arrival. Friends saved her a parking spot and the first spot in line for the 7 p.m. weigh-in. The words “state record” and “giant albie” could be heard above the chatter.
When Mike Cassidy weighed in the albie and announced the verdict, the group swarmed Ms. Countryman and embraced her.
“I feel really excited,” Ms. Countryman told the Gazette outside headquarters. “I kept saying, this is huge. This is a huge fish.”
She caught the albie while out fishing with her fiance, Steve Brink, and her friend, Mel Ben David. When they weighed the albie on the boat, the scale read over 20 pounds.
“They were screaming and jumping, and I was shaking because I was exhausted from bringing it in,” Ms. Countryman said.
Her first stop after getting off the boat was not to a weigh station, but to the hospital, where she had planned to visit her father. Meanwhile, her friends, aware she had a record on her hands, mobilized. They urged her to weigh in the fish straight away at Dick’s Bait and Tackle, a state-designated weigh station, to lock in the achievement.
“I turn back to [my father], and he goes, ‘What are you waiting for?’” she said.
The weigh-in at Dick’s confirmed the record; the derby weigh-in was something of a victory lap. Friends and family huddled around Ms. Countryman for a final few photos with the mammoth albie before it headed to the filet station.
For Ms. Countryman, setting a record, or even winning the derby, isn’t the best thing about being an angler — friendship is.
“The only thing that makes fishing worthwhile is all your friends,” Ms. Countryman said. “They all came down just to see me and be happy for me, and I would do the same for them.”
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