The International Underwater Spearfishing Association

International Underwater Spearfishing Association

World Record

5.3 kg. , 11.8 lbs.

Wiper Morone chrysops x Morone saxatilis

Record Category: Men Speargun

Diver:		Anthony Borghi
Date:		7/7/2018
Location:		UNITED STATES

Wiper Hunt July 7th I have been spearfishing Lake Mcconaughy in Nebraska for about 12 years, and have only come across the elusive Wiper a handful of times. Its known by the local divers as the silver ghost, because we never see them, even though the lake has a good population of them. The local fisherman call them tuna, because of their ability to strip all the line off the reel. Everytime I would raise my gun for a shot, they would take off, beating the water hard with their tail. This past Saturday morning, I decided to try diving in a different location, as the few previous days I spent freediving some south side points for walleye with good success. I anchored my boat in about 20 foot of water right on the dam, the sun was up, but still hadn’t crested the towering dam yet, and I can could see baitfish hitting the surface all around. I made several dives in 15 to 25 feet of water, seeing lots of baitfish, and lots of carp, and lots of smallmouth bass. I was making a dive, half way down in about 12 feet of water I heard what sounded like thunder, and I knew it was the sound of wipers beating their tails, chasing bait. I was in the middle of a massive school of wipers, they were all around me, skirting me while chasing the baby shad and alewife they were hunting. I pulled up on a very big wiper, pulled the trigger, but my line attaching the shaft to the gun got wrapped up on the gun barrel, and came up very short. My heart was racing fast, as I have never been in presence of this many big fish. I surfaced while reloading, took a couple deep breaths, and went back down. They were still there, all around me. I didn’t even make I to bottom, they were all around me again, I picked one, not as big as the first one, and shot, hit low on the belly and it took off, tugging fiercely on my gun, I knew for sure it would pull off. I pulled the lanyard in and got my hand in the gill, attached my stringer from my float thru, and hooked it back to my gun. I made another dive, and just like that, they were gone, ghosts. I will probably never have another encounter like that, and now looking back feels like the most pivotal point in my freediving career. Realizing that very well may never happen again. I knew he was pretty big, but I wasn’t sure if it was a record. My buddy and I have been talking about the possible world records in our lake that we could possibly get, so I knew the current record was 10 something, and I wasn’t sure he was that big. I swam back to the boat, and put him in the cooler. My buddy that I was diving with came back to the boat, congratulated me, and I told him that was first wiper I have ever shot, and he said it was big. I asked him if he thought it was over 10, and he said he wasn’t sure. We went to couple more areas looking for walleye, with not much success. I decide to put him on my Berkley digital scale, just to get an idea if he was close, and it showed 11.8, so I knew I had to get it to the game and p