200-Year-Old Fish Caught off Coast of Alaska

Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" was just hitting bookstores and the British and the United States were waging war once again 200 years ago - which is roughly when a fish recently caught in Alaska is believed to have been born.

Henry Liebman, an insurance adjuster from Seattle, Wash., was fishing outside Juneau last week when he reeled in a 39.08-pound rougheye rockfish.

Liebman had been fishing in 900 feet of water at the time, approximately 10 miles off the coastal town of Sitka

The previous record for the fish stood at 38.69 pounds, according to the Sitka Sentinel.

"I knew it was abnormally large [but I] didn't know it was a record until on the way back we looked in the Alaska guide book that was on the boat," Liebman told the paper.

It wasn't until he'd returned to land, however, that he learned how old it was.

Troy Tidingco is the Sitka area manager for the state Department of Fish and Game and the one who certified Liebman's catch. At 41 inches long, Tidingco estimated that the fish was pushing its 205 year mark - the age of the oldest rougheye ever caught.

A sample of Liebman's catch has been sent to a lab in Juneau in order to determine its exact age, though the fish itself will return home with Liebman, who said he has plans to mount it on his wall.

With a range from San Diego to the Aleutian Islands as well as the Bering Seas to the Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan, the rougheye rockfish is found from depths ranging from 80 feet to as deep as 9,400 feet, according to the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, with its most common range between 500 feet and 1,500 feet.

Though little is known about the biology and life of the fish, it appears to have late maturation and slow growth. Food habit studies in Alaska indicate that the diet of the rougheye rockfish consists primarily of shrimp, and particularly pandalids.

To see a picture of the recent catch, click here.