The fish was already on the cutting board when Jim Frazetti had second thoughts.

Looking at the dolphinfish he had caught earlier that day, Frazetti remembers thinking he should have checked it out sooner. Given the size, and what Frazetti remembered seeing online, he thought he might have beaten a Maryland size record.

“I was like, ‘I think this is it,’” Frazetti said.

He called around to different shops to find one near his Crownsville home that could validate his catch.

A shop in Annapolis was able to help. The fish, caught about 60 miles offshore, was in fact a pompano dolphinfish. It weighed in at 7 pounds, 8 ounces — more than twice as heavy as the previous state record, according to the Department of Natural Resources.

In a rare achievement, breaking that size record was not Frazetti’s only notable catch out into the Atlantic aboard the Talk’n Trash, an Ocean City-based charter boat.

He also earned the Master Angler Award, the highest of three awards given out as part of the FishMaryland program. A DNR official said no other Marylander has broken a state record and earned the Master Angler Award in the same fishing trip before.

With a cast dropped 600 or 800 feet deep into the cold Atlantic Ocean, Frazetti hooked what he could tell was “a really good fish.”

After 15 or 20 minutes of careful work to reel it in, Frazetti saw his prize: a golden tilefish of trophy size. It was the last of 10 qualifying fish he needed to catch to earn the Master Angler title.

“I’ve been lucky to catch some cool stuff,” Frazetti said, “and I’m looking forward to catching some more.”

The angler, 47, said he’s been fishing for almost his entire life. He grew up in Anne Arundel County, and now lives along the Severn River, which he called his favorite place to fish, followed by excursions off the coast of Ocean City.

He gave a lot of the credit to the captain of Talk’n Trash, Chris Little, and his crew. “That [record-breaking] catch is just as much them as it is me,” Frazetti said.

Little did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Frazetti is the 26th person to be named a Maryland Master Angler, according to DNR. To qualify, an angler must catch 10 from a list of 60 qualifying fish species that are found in Maryland, said Keith Lockwood, fisheries biologist with DNR.

Those fish also must be above a certain size and caught legally — meaning an adult fisher needs to have a Maryland fishing license.

“It’s not particularly easy to do, to tell you the truth,” Lockwood said of achieving Master Angler status. “But a lot of our fishermen are pretty dedicated.”

State officials established the program in January 2019, and the first person to achieve the rank was Gay Simpson, of Baltimore County, in 2019. The youngest so far is Lucy Moore, of Cecil County, who was just 11 when she became a Master Angler in 2024.

Lockwood said promoting fishing promotes opportunities for “people to spend quality time together.”

When you’re out fishing, he said, there’s nothing else going on. It’s a lot different than sitting on the sidelines watching a child play soccer, he added. One-on-one time spent fishing, he noted, can encourage children to open up and share.

It also has a significant economic impact on the state, generating about $1.1 billion in economic activity and supporting about 8,250 jobs, according to the American Sportfishing Association.

“We’re trying to get more people out there, to enjoy it, to enjoy the outdoors,” Lockwood said.

Plus, working to achieve the Master Angler rank means people who are fishing are constantly competing with each other. Hitting the rank comes with plenty of bragging rights.

“Oh yeah,” Lockwood said, “the anglers love that.”