Eric McDowell hooked into the fight of his life off the Jersey Shore, battling a swordfish for more than five hours before hauling a 622.5-pound giant onto the dock at Ocean City Yacht Club. His crew says it could be the biggest swordfish ever weighed in the state of New Jersey, and they're moving to submit it for the record books.
McDowell, who serves as president and owner of Christi Insurance Group in Ocean City, set out with his crew aboard his 37-foot Valhalla, Premium Time, according to seed facts credited to NJ.com. The crew traveled roughly 85 miles offshore to Tom's Canyon, a known deepwater hotspot for big swordfish, fishing with live squid as bait. The Ocean City Sentinel reports the trip happened on Nov. 4, with the crew leaving the dock at 3:30 a.m., hooking the fish around 11:30 a.m., and finally landing it a little after 4 p.m. — though NJ.com's reporting places the departure at 3 a.m. the following Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026. The two outlets' timelines don't line up, and which date is accurate remains unclear.
What isn't in dispute is the brutal fight that followed. The Sentinel describes a battle that stretched nearly five hours and dragged McDowell, his crew and the boat three miles through Tom's Canyon before the swordfish finally gave out. Dan Pettit, who works with McDowell at Christi Insurance, called it the catch of a lifetime and said the fish weighed in at 622.5 pounds, describing it as possibly the biggest ever weighed in New Jersey.
A Fish of Staggering Size
The numbers on this swordfish are hard to ignore. It measured 14 feet from the tip of its sword to the end of its tail, with a 4-foot bill accounting for much of that length, and stretched 10 feet from its lower jaw to the tail fork without the sword included. The Sentinel's figures line up closely, describing the fish at 14 feet overall and 10 feet without the sword.
The crew brought their catch back to shore that evening. The Sentinel reports they arrived at the Ocean City Yacht Club about 8:30 p.m., while NJ.com's account puts the return at 8:20 p.m. on Nov. 10, 2026. The weight was made official by the Ocean City Marlin & Tuna Club, and the scale used for the weigh-in, per the Sentinel's report, is certified every year.
Chasing a State Record
McDowell told the Sentinel the crew plans to submit the fish for a New Jersey state record, and Pettit said the previous state mark stood at 531 pounds. Whether the 622.5-pound swordfish will ultimately be certified as a new record has not been confirmed. New Jersey's State Record Fish Program is a separate application process based on weight alone, and according to a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Fish & Wildlife document, it requires scale-certification documentation and a weighmaster's signature.
There's also some disagreement over exactly who was aboard for the historic catch. The Sentinel names the crew as Dan Pettit, Jay Olsen and Jake Bowels, while NJ.com identifies them as Dan Pettit, Jason Olsen and Jacob Bowell. Both accounts agree that Pettit, who works alongside McDowell at the Ocean City insurance firm, was on board.
Part of a Banner Swordfish Season
McDowell's catch arrives amid what On The Water describes as an exceptionally strong fall swordfish bite stretching from New York down through New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland this season. Just days earlier, a four-person crew aboard the Way Out ran roughly 60 miles to Poorman's Canyon out of Ocean City, Maryland, and returned with a 558-pound swordfish that, if certified, would top Maryland's existing state record of 393 pounds, caught in September 2022.
Big swordfish have made Jersey Shore headlines before. A Maryland Department of Natural Resources announcement from 2022 noted that the state's own record catch at the time beat a prior mark by more than 90 pounds, one that had been set in 2021 by New Jersey resident Jake Bertonazzi. For now, McDowell's crew is left waiting to see whether their nearly five-hour battle in Tom's Canyon earns a place in the record books back home.
