New NC African Pompano Record

Earlier this month, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries certified angler Toby Grantham’s 46-pound African pompano (Alectis ciliaris) as a new state record.

Grantham caught the fish on May 11, 2014 while fishing off of North Carolina’s Atlantic Beach.

Grantham’s fish bested the previous record of 40 pounds, 10 ounces by 5 pounds and 6 ounces. The previous record had stood since 2003.

The world record African pompano is listed as a 50-pound, 8-ounce fish caught off of Daytona Beach, Florida in 1990.

Interestingly, Grantham also holds the North Carolina state record for scamp, a 27-pound, 1-ounce fish he caught in 2012 fishing on the same boat, in the same area, standing next to the same man (Milton Boyd, the boat’s cook) as when he took his record African pompano.

For both records, Grantham was fishing a wreck of a scuttled US Coast Guard ship aboard Captain Dave Tilley’s 100-foot Continental Shelf.

Grantham is the only angler to hold two North Carolina state records for the largest fish at the same time.