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Levasseur's halibut weighed 364 pounds, a whopping 110 pounds more than Mark Sams' previous derby leader, caught July 16. Among Southcentral derby fish, only the 376-pounder that won the 25-year-old Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby for Minnesota angler Jerry Meinders in 1996 weighed more. The previous Valdez Derby record was a 343-pounder. Fishing 170 feet deep in the Gulf of Alaska, some 100 miles out of Valdez, Levasseur hooked his fish early in the morning on a jig with herring. There was no mistaking what he had. ... Finally, a dark shadow approached from the deep that was so big even...

Norwegian Catches Halibut Too Big for Boat 2 hours, 52 minutes ago Strange News - AP OSLO, Norway - Unlike many fishermen, Harald Skoge didn't have to exaggerate the size of his latest catch. The 321-pound halibut was too big for his nearly 29-foot boat. Skoge, who fishes as a hobby, was trying his luck off western Norway with a simple hook and line on Wednesday when he thought something had gone wrong. "At first, I thought the hook had gotten stuck at the bottom," the retiree was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of his local newspaper, Sunnmoersposten. Slowly,...

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