A Gilbertsville man who went fishing for the first time last month in Maryland walked away with a state record after he caught a 21.3-pound blueline tilefish during a charter trip, officials with the state’s Department of Natural Resources said.
Dominic Vuotto made the record-breaking catch on July 26 off the coast of Ocean City near Washington Canyon, a popular place for tuna fishing in the Atlantic Ocean. Vuotto was fishing with friends aboard Foolish Pleasures, a charter boat run by captain Dale Lisi from Ocean City.
Vuotto, 46, said Friday that he and his wife recently bought a vacation home in Ocean City. One of his friends there goes on annual fishing trips and mentioned the idea of Vuotto joining them. Another person had bailed on the trip.
“I said, ‘sure, I’ve never gone deep sea fishing before,’ but it reminds me of my grandfather and my wife’s father because they liked going out on the water,” Vuotto said.
The group of six initially went out in search of tuna, but they didn’t have any luck.
“We were out there for about eight hours, not finding anything,” Vuotto said. “The captain said, ‘Look, guys, I don’t want you going home empty-handed.'”
Lisi steered Foolish Pleasures to an area where he’s had success catching blueline tilefish, a species that’s found along the East Coast from New Jersey to Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico. Vuotto was among the first to try his luck at the new location.
“I dropped the line 350 feet straight down,” Vuotto said. “All I could think about was I have to pull all this back up. It had a 2-pound weight on it and they said you can catch up to three fish on it.”
The group on board Foolish Pleasures all used hand-crank reels, which are required for catches to be eligible for state and world records. Vuotto said he felt a bite and immediately began struggling to reel in the tilefish.
“I had never been fishing, so I didn’t know what the hell a tilefish was,” Vuotto said. “I snagged it and I started cranking it up and the guys were yelling at me, calling me all sorts of names because it was slow-going.”
One of the other guys on the boat already had reeled in two tilefish that ended up weighing 15 and 18 pounds each. When Vuotto finally got his fish onto the boat, he thought they looked roughly the same as the others. Lisi took one look at Vuotto’s tilefish and had a hunch that his catch might be a state record.
“I thought he was pulling my leg, and mind you, I’m still walking off the beating that the fish just gave me,” Vuotto said. “I think it almost took my life. I was exhausted, you know? I was seeing angels.”
Vuotto only started to believe the hype when he heard Lisi radio the coast to have a certified scale ready.
“We got back and, sure as hell, it beat the record by over half a pound,” Vuotto said.
Vuotto’s catch was weighed at the Bahia Marina in Ocean City, where it was certified as topping the state’s previous record of 20.6 pounds for the species. That record was set in August 2024 by London J. Anthony.
“Now I’m hooked,” Vuotto said. “I already told the captain I’ll be back next year, and we’re talking about going back in September. Really, the experience was for tuna, so I still want to do that.”
As for the tilefish?
“We kept it and ate it,” Vuotto said. “Had some that night for dinner and the next morning for breakfast. Still have a bit frozen for this weekend.”
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