The young girl and the sea: Meet the 9-year-old who has set a fishing record.
A 9-year-old girl has reeled in a giant fish that weighs 30 pounds more than she does, setting a new state record for the biggest catch in coastal waters.
Emma Zajdel was fishing off Maryland’s Eastern Shore with her dad and some friends when they put their rods in the water one last time before heading home.
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Emma got a nibble, so she belted herself in and started reeling in her fish.
But when this proved to be considerably difficult, and the girl soon realized there was something really heavy on the other end of her line.
"At first we thought it was a brown shark or something until it got close, right up alongside the boat,” dad Ed Zajdel told CBS affiliate WJZ-TV.
Turns out it was a humongous cobia — more massive than anything anyone on the boat had ever seen.
“I’ve seen pictures, but I’ve never seen anything that big,” said Emma’s friend, Ashton Clarke.
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It took Emma 20 minutes to wrestle the fish onto the boat.
Back at the dock, the cobia weighed in at 94.6 pounds and spanned 66.5 inches, more than a foot taller than Emma.
The previous state record for a cobia was 79 pounds.
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