--- title: This Guy Went to Alaska and Caught a 482-Pound Halibut description: The largest halibut on record. canonical: https://time.com/2978660/alaska-halibut/ author: Bijan Stephen article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-12T18:51:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:11:38.285Z og:title: This Guy Went to Alaska and Caught a 482-Pound Halibut og:description: The largest halibut on record. og:url: https://time.com/2978660/alaska-halibut/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Guy Went to Alaska and Caught a 482-Pound Halibut twitter:description: The largest halibut on record. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Guy Went to Alaska and Caught a 482-Pound Halibut by [Bijan Stephen](https://time.com/author/bijan-stephen/) ## Bijan Stephen Jul 12, 2014 6:51 PM UTC by [Bijan Stephen](https://time.com/author/bijan-stephen/) ## Bijan Stephen Jul 12, 2014 6:51 PM UTC After a 40-minute struggle, 76-year-old Californian Jack McGuire recently caught the world’s largest halibut, the [Associated Press reports](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/california-man-catches-482-pound-halibut-alaska). McGuire’s monster fish weighed a whopping 482 pounds and was 95 inches long, smashing the previous record set in 1996 (a very respectable 459lbs). Unfortunately his catch will go unrecognized by the International Game Fish Association, because McGuire’s boat captain shot the fish before it was brought onboard to keep it from flopping about and hurting someone. According to the AP, McGuire “applauded the decision” to kill the fish despite his disqualification from record-holder status. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2978660/alaska-halibut/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2978660/alaska-halibut/"},"headline":"This Guy Went to Alaska and Caught a 482-Pound Halibut","datePublished":"2014-07-12T18:51:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:11:38.285Z","description":"An old man and the sea","url":"https://time.com/2978660/alaska-halibut/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Alaska","animals","Fishing","fish"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Bijan Stephen","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/bijan-stephen/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2978660/alaska-halibut/","name":"This Guy Went to Alaska and Caught a 482-Pound Halibut"}}]}] ```