IT WASN’T quite the old fisherman and the sea, but it was a battle Ernest Hemingway would have enjoyed as a monster snapper was hooked off Scotts Head.
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Bill Kercher of Yarrahapinni was fishing in 42 metres when he snagged an 11.5kg beast, which was 980cm long.
“I’ve been fishing outside for 35 years and caught a lot of snapper around the eight kilogram mark, but I haven’t heard of anything this big being caught in this area since the ’80s,” Bill told the Nambucca Guardian.
“I reckon the snapper would have been around 55 years old as they say it’s five years per kilo.”
The big catch was duly hauled into Bill’s 4.4-metre centre console – an old Clark boat – for a rendezvous with the freezer at home.
An 112cm, 16kg pink snapper caught at Albany in 2014 is thought to be the biggest snapper caught off the rocks in Australia.