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California fisherman catches 482-pound halibut in Alaska

Earlier this month, 76-year-old Jack McGuire was on a weeklong fishing trip in Alaska with three friends when he hooked a massive fish.

It was a 95-inch-long, 482-pound Pacific halibut.

"That's the catch of a lifetime," the Santa Ana, California, man told the OC Register.

It took the men 40 minutes to bring the fish to the surface.

"All of a sudden [Captain Rye Phillips] said, 'Oh my god. This is a monster,'" recalled McGuire after returning home to California. "And this is a captain who has seen a lot of fish."

The catch would have broken the record for largest Pacific halibut caught — the current record is a 459-pound fish caught in 1996 — had the fish not been shot and harpooned before being hauled onto the boat. International Game Fish Association rules dictate that tools other than a net or gaffe cannot be used for landing fish, KTVA reported, nor can multiple people pull it out of the water.

It took three men to pull McGuire's fish onto the boat.

"A record never came to mind," McGuire told ABC News. "I wanted to catch the fish and also make sure nobody got hurt bringing it into the boat."

"It was a wonderful fight and I enjoyed the battle of the fish," he added.

McGuire joked that his bait could have had something to do with his success.

"We were all using sardines and some octopus and I asked the captain what the round stuff was on the end of my line and the captain said, 'That's octopus brain,'" Jack McGuire told ABC News yesterday. "So I caught him on octopus brain."

McGuire told the OC Register that this was the seventh consecutive year McGuire traveled to Alaska to fish.

"To be honest, I had made up my mind that it was my last trip to Alaska anyways, so I can go out with flair," McGuire said. "What do I do now, go out and catch one bigger?"

McGuire and his wife will be reaping the rewards of his catch for quite some time. McGuire returned to Orange County on Monday with 100 pounds of vacuum-sealed halibut.

"I'm not a big fish eater," McGuire admitted.

His wife, a native of Denmark, confirmed that the catch was a tasty one.

"It was very good," Ilse McGuire said. "Excellent."

They plan on celebrating the catch by hosting a fish fry for their friends, family and fellow fisherman.