Jim Bickerstaff had no idea what he'd hooked when he reeled in a strange, spiny-looking fish about 45 miles off Southport on Sept. 29. It turned out to be a unicorn filefish, and North Carolina had never certified a state record for the species before.
Bickerstaff landed the fish in 140 feet of water using squid bait, 80-pound test line, an Ugly Stick rod and a Penn Fathom conventional reel, according to Coastal Review. Before his catch, there was no state record for the species at all, the outlet reports. The fish weighed in at 6 pounds, 1.6 ounces and stretched 25.5 inches from nose to tail, with a 17-inch girth, per the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.
Bickerstaff described the catch as accidental — he said he had no idea the species even existed before it ended up on his line, according to the Charlotte Observer. He used the Fish Rules app to help identify what he'd caught, the paper reports, and later said the fish fought harder than a triggerfish he'd reeled in earlier that same day.
A Scramble to Find a Certified Scale
Getting the catch officially recognized wasn't simple. Bickerstaff visited three different tackle shop scales before finding one qualified to certify the weight for a state-record submission, per the Observer's reporting. He eventually found what he needed at the Oak Island Pier, where Gina Sargese provided a legally calibrated scale to weigh the fish.
Once the scale confirmed the numbers, state officials moved to certify the find. The unicorn filefish gets its common name from its elongated, pointed snout and an upright first dorsal spine, the state's report on the catch notes. Its elongated snout and upright first dorsal spine give it a distinctive appearance.
A Species Rarely Seen This Far North
Unicorn filefish live in tropical and subtropical waters around the world, including stretches of the western Atlantic that run from Massachusetts down to Argentina, as well as parts of the eastern Atlantic, eastern Pacific and Indian oceans, per the same account. That wide range makes Bickerstaff's catch off the North Carolina coast notable: it is the state's first certified record for the species.
For context on just how big these fish can get, the reported all-tackle world record for a unicorn filefish stands at 9 pounds, 7 ounces, caught off Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, in 2023, according to the International Game Fish Association. Bickerstaff's fish, while a full state record for North Carolina, came in roughly three pounds lighter than that benchmark.
As for the fish itself, Bickerstaff said in a Facebook post that he kept it in his freezer, planning to cook it up for a future meal rather than mount it. Southport sits roughly a 160-mile drive southeast of downtown Raleigh, putting the record-setting water well within reach of inland anglers willing to make the trip to the coast.
