Robert Pedigo has caught what's believed to be the heaviest yellowfin tuna ever landed on rod and reel, weighing 427.9 pounds.
However, the catch will not be submitted to the International Game Fish Assn. for world record consideration because the deckhand assisted in the catch, which was made last Thursday off Puerto Vallarta aboard the sportfisher Journeyman.
"Yes, this fish is not going to be a world record because I touched the rod while Robert fought the fish," Danny Osuna, a local captain who was handling deck duties, told Phil Friedman Outdoors. "We never thought this fish was going to go over 400-pounds."
The fish was not weighed until Sunday when Journeyman pulled into the Mexican resort city after an eight-day excursion to an area known as the Lower Banks.
The current all-tackle world record yellowfin is a 405-pound specimen caught in Mexican waters last November by Mike Livingston aboard the Vagabond, which runs from San Diego.
Livingston's fish erased from the record book a 388-pound, 12-ounce yellowfin caught in 1977.