Bill Catino of Ventnor got laid off from Revel, so he suddenly has some time to get back into fishing. He used to fish a lot, but two daughters and work demands took him away from it. He got back big time. On Tuesday evening, he was fishing from the public fishing area in the back bays behind the Longport Police Department. (pressofatlanticcity.com reported first) Catino and daughters Kaela, 9, and Kassidy, 8, have fun uncovering cailico crabs in the mud and sand.
He took the bait in a bucket to the bulkhead and dock at the police station Tuesday evening. It was only a few minutes after he put one of the crabs out before he tied into what he could tell was a very decent fish.
He did not waste any time hauling in the fish. He said he “slammed” it when he hooked it. He said he lost a striped bass at the same spot, so he made sure he had it wired.
It came up to the surface a couple of times and made big splashes, and that’s when he saw bands of black and white stripes. He joked later that he first wondered what a zebra was doing there in the water.
It turned out to be a sheepshead, which has distinctive vertical stripes. When he flipped it up on the deck, he realized he had something special. He took it to Ray Scott’s Dock in Margate, where it weighed 19 pounds and measured 29 inches long with a girth of 27 inches. Ray Scott, whom everybody just calls Scott, was the weigh master, and he also realized there that this fish something special.
Catino now owns the sheepshead state record after taking the fish to the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife office at Nacote Creek for verification on Thursday. The previous record was 17 pounds, 3 ounces set in 2003 in Manahawkin Bay. Catino’s catch was 2 pounds off the world record of 21 pounds, 4 ounces established in 1982 in New Orleans, according to International Game Fishing Association records. It has been entered into The Press Fishing Contest presented by TackleDirect.
Catino is 52 and was a butler at Revel and two other Atlantic City casinos before that. He said he opened and closed Revel.
And now, he said, he is “getting the bug all over again” to do more fishing. He also said it has been “crazy” over the last four days. A state record catch will do that.
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