Biggest Fish Ever Caught: A 2,664 lb Great White on Rod and Reel

The biggest fish ever caught on rod and reel is a 2,664 lb (1,208 kg) great white shark. Alfred Dean landed it at Ceduna, South Australia, on April 21, 1959. The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) still lists it as the record. The next heaviest record on its list is 878 lb lighter. The biggest fish alive is a different answer: the whale shark, a filter feeder that grows far past anything ever landed on a line.

Alfred Dean used a porpoise for bait. Under today’s IGFA rules, that alone would disqualify the biggest fish ever caught.

Who caught the biggest fish ever?

Alfred Dean, a fruit farmer from Victoria, caught it about 12 miles off Ceduna. He fished 130 lb line with a porpoise for bait, Outdoor Life says. The British Sea Fishing account puts the fight at “only seventy minutes.” It also says he landed seven great whites over 2,000 lb in all.

NOAA Fisheries says adult white sharks reach up to 21 ft and 4,500 lb, so Dean’s fish wasn’t the ceiling. Illustration: Duane Raver, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)

It’s still the record, and it’s likely to stay that way. In US waters the white shark is “a prohibited species (no retention allowed),” NOAA Fisheries says, and one you catch “must be released immediately.” A weight record has to go on a scale on land, so a fish you let go can’t count. Outdoor Life says that means the IGFA no longer takes great whites as record fish. The IGFA’s May 2026 rulebook doesn’t name the white shark anywhere. It doesn’t have to. A fish caught against the law for that species or water is “not eligible for an IGFA World Record.”

You can still hook one. Atlantic anglers with the right permits may fish for white sharks with rod and reel. The shark has to be released at once, without being taken out of the water and without further harm. You just can’t weigh one for the book.

The 10 biggest fish ever caught on rod and reel

These are the ten heaviest IGFA all-tackle records, as its database showed them on November 9, 2026. An all-tackle record is the heaviest fish of a species on any line up to the 130 lb class. Here’s who you’d have to beat.

The swordfish just misses, at 1,182 lb, from Iquique, Chile, in 1953. That’s the same year as the black marlin, and both are older than Dean’s shark. These records last.

The tiger shark line has a second name on it. The IGFA also lists Walter Maxwell’s 1,780 lb tiger, caught at Cherry Grove, South Carolina, on June 14, 1964, as an all-tackle record.

You may have seen the newest near miss this summer. On August 19, 2026, Walter Chapman fought a blue marlin on rod and reel from Capt. Damon Sacco’s boat, the Castafari. They were at Atlantis Canyon, about 100 miles off Cape Cod. It weighed 1,260 lb at Falmouth, Massachusetts, and was more than 11 feet long. That’s 142 lb short of the Atlantic blue marlin record. They and others believe it’s the biggest Atlantic blue ever caught off the US East Coast, the Associated Press reported. The report mentions no IGFA ruling.

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What’s the largest black marlin ever caught?

A 1,560 lb fish, caught by Alfred Glassell Jr. at Cabo Blanco, Peru, on August 4, 1953. It’s the heaviest billfish on the IGFA list, and no marlin record has topped it in more than 70 years.

The biggest tuna is Ken Fraser’s 1,496 lb Atlantic bluefin from Nova Scotia. The IGFA lists the Pacific bluefin apart. That record is 907 lb 6 oz, taken by Donna Pascoe at the Three Kings in New Zealand on February 19, 2014. The yellowfin mark is 443 lb, from Cabo San Lucas in 2024. Dianne North’s 802 lb bigeye thresher shark, from Tutukaka, New Zealand, in 1981, is on the list too.

Has anyone caught a bigger great white?

Yes, and you’ll see it on some lists, but it doesn’t count. In early August 1986, Frank Mundus and Donnie Braddick brought a great white to the dock at Montauk, New York. They caught it about 30 miles south of there. The scale stopped at 3,500 lb with the fish in its cargo net. Take off the 73 lb net and you get 3,427 lb, which beats Dean by 763 lb.

Mundus hooked it, then got up and gave the chair to Braddick, who fought it on 150 lb line. IGFA rules say one angler hooks, fights and lands the fish “without the aid of any other person.” The heaviest line class the IGFA allows is 130 lb, too. Mundus always said the record was denied on a technicality. Fishing writer Lou Russo called the chair swap the likely reason. So the heaviest great white on a rod may be real and still be out of the book.

What are the biggest fish in the world?

The whale shark is the biggest fish alive, and it isn’t close. You won’t find any of the fish below in the record table above, and the third column says why.

A note on those sunfish weights. The 6,049 lb fish may have died from a ship strike, National Geographic says. It beat the old mark, another sunfish of the same kind caught near Japan in 1996, by nearly 1,000 lb.

Fresh water has its own list. The heaviest fish ever weighed there is the 661 lb stingray, and the heaviest IGFA rod record is a 468 lb white sturgeon. Among the largest freshwater fish, the netted ones and the rod-caught ones are two different lists.

Is the Greenland shark really 400 years old?

Maybe, and it’s old either way. One large female was put at about 392 years, give or take 120. FishBase says the species lives at least 272 years and doesn’t mature until about 150. The one on the record list weighed 1,708 lb 9 oz, from a Norwegian fjord in 1987.

Size stories run ahead of the facts here. FishBase lists females to 18 ft (550 cm) and says reports over 21 ft (640 cm) are unverified. It’s also a very slow shark, and its flesh “is said to be toxic when fresh,” so don’t plan on a fish fry. There are more strange fish like this on the fish facts page.

What’s the biggest fish ever caught in the US?

A tiger shark. Walter Maxwell’s 1,780 lb fish from Cherry Grove, South Carolina, in 1964 is the heaviest US catch on the IGFA list. Here are nine American giants from the same records.

You won’t be keeping a goliath. NOAA says they reach 800 lb and have been closed to harvest in federal waters since 1990. Florida state waters allow only a limited harvest.

If I were after a true giant without a plane ticket or a big boat, I’d pick a white sturgeon. It’s the biggest fish on that list you can target from a river, and most of them go back alive. The sturgeon fishing guide has the rig and the rules by state.

Photo: Geoff Steinhart, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)

What does it take to set a world record?

A big fish isn’t a record until the paperwork says so. These are the rules that keep the giants out, straight from the IGFA:

1. Certified scale. The scale must have been certified for accuracy within the past 12 months. “No estimated weights will be accepted.”
2. On land. Outside the junior categories, the fish must be weighed on land.
3. One angler, no help. Nobody else can touch the rod, reel or line while the fish is being played.
4. No harpoons. Shooting, harpooning or lancing a fish at any stage disqualifies it, sharks included.
5. No mammal bait. You can’t use “the flesh, blood, skin, or any part of mammals” as bait or chum. Hair and pork rind in trolling or casting lures are the exception.
6. Legal fish, legal water. The catch can’t break any law for that species or water. Hatchery waters, sanctuaries and small waters stocked for commercial purposes don’t count.

If you land one that might qualify, take photos of the whole fish, the rod and reel, and the scale. The IGFA won’t take an application without photographs. It also says witnesses are “highly desirable.” Dean’s porpoise bait passed in 1959, so don’t try to copy him.

How big is the record for the fish you actually catch?

Way smaller, and a lot closer to what you can reach. Here are the IGFA all-tackle records for the fish you actually catch.

Dean’s shark weighed more than 18 of those blue cats.

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