Caught 50 kg cod: "Like winning the lottery"

"I've been at sea for 16 years and this is the biggest cod I've ever caught. It's uncommon to get them this big," claims Eysteinn Örn Garðarsson who caught a cod weighing nearly 50 kg last Friday. "It's just like winning the lottery." Eysteinn is a seaman on the boat Ágúst GK 95 which fishes out of Grindavík.

Eysteinn says that it's always exciting to watch the catch being rolled aboard the boat. "When the cod turns upside-down you can see the white side. That's when you see whether you're rolling in a small or a large fish. In this case I saw that something big was coming in, so I was ready to hook him and bring him in by hand. It was quite an effort getting such a heavy fish on board."

The seaman is delighted with his catch, but the cod will face the same fate as every other cod that they catch; processed and sold in a fishstore in Grindavík. "It won't be put on display or anything, it'll just end up on someone's plate."

Eysteinn says that a lot of prestige comes with catching such a big fish. "I'm really proud. It's a highpoint of my fishing career. I've caught a shark and a halibut on a line, but this giant cod has them beat.

A Norwegian fisherman made the [LINK]news[/LINK] around two years ago when he caught a cod that measured 41.5 kg.