A New York City teen “caught the fish of a lifetime” when he landed a 1,058-pound blue marlin off the coast of Kona, Hawaii, this week.
"For my first one to be a grander it’s just an unreal experience,” Kai Rizzuto, 16, told NBC News on Thursday. On average, only two so-called granders — blue marlins weighing more than 1,000 pounds — are caught in Kona each year, said Jim Rizzuto, Kai Rizzuto's grandfather and local fishing columnist.
The “enormous” fish, captured on cameraby Ihu Nui Sportfishing, was longer than 11 feet when measured from its jaw to its tail, Jim Rizzuto added.
Kai Rizzuto, who lives in Brooklyn, called the catch “nuts,” and said people from across the world regularly travel to Kona in hopes of making such a catch. He'd added that he'd been wanting to hook the fish for years but finally got his chance on Wednesday.
McGrew Rice, the captain of the 45-foot Monterey fishing boat where Rizzuto caught the fish, called it “the fish of a lifetime.”
“That’s like hitting a grand slam home run in the last inning of the World Series,” Rice told NBC News.
