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I'm pretty sure this is the biggest fish I've ever caught. It's a 48-inch red drum I pulled in last Saturday while fishing for cobia in the Chesapeake Bay. I released it so can only guess at the weight. Claude Bain of the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament looked at the pictures and said he felt it was pushing 60 pounds. It was incredibly fat, that much is certain.

We shot some video that day. The production isn't great as I didn't really take the time to shoot b-roll so the producer didn't have much to work with. But it turned out OK despite that. At a few points you'll hear whistles, which covered up some innappropriate language (not from me). I'm not sure why we couldn't just use the same bleep everyone else uses but, whatever. Next time, no swearing.

In the video I say, "I just caught the two biggest fish of my life today." I figured that cobia was close to 50 pounds, and am still surprised it was only 38. So that means it wasn't as heavy as the 46-inch striper I caught (and released) in the Bay about eight years ago. But I caught that striper, which was stout and probably weighed 45 pounds, while trolling with Claude and the only thing I really did was reel it in. I was particularly happy with that cobia and drum because that was a total do-it-ourself trip.

Here's the video.