Before the kingfish,
they had to catch the bait.
Bo’s record started with a smaller catch. Captain Don Dingman’s crew used a sabiki rig to catch live cigar minnows for bait.
Live cigar minnows are one of our favorite summer baits here in Jacksonville. On a lot of our days, pogies are an easy bait to get with a cast net. But there’s something about the way a cigar minnow swims that always seems to get the fish fired up.
For families new to fishing, a sabiki rig is a line with several small hooks attached on short branches, with a weight at the bottom to help lower it into the water. The sabiki rigs we use have small pieces of fish skin on the hooks. As campers jig the rig up and down, the skin flashes in the water and attracts baitfish. When the baitfish bite those small hooks, campers reel them up for live bait. Those little fish then become the bait for something bigger.
Baitfish on a sabiki.
A 4.5-second camp clip, filmed June 16, 2026. Several baitfish hang from a sabiki beside a camper aboard the boat.
This clip illustrates a sabiki rig with baitfish. It was filmed on a different camp day from Bo’s June 11 record catch.
What happens in the clip
Several small silver fish hang at intervals along a line beside a camper in a life jacket. The fish move as the line is held above the boat, then are moved out of view.
What does each part do?
Tap a part below to take a closer look.
The line that holds it together
The central line connects the rig to your fishing line. Short branch lines hold the small hooks away from it.
New to sabiki rigs? Mercury Marine’s bait-catching guide explains the basic setup. The diagram above is an explainer, not a reconstruction of the exact tackle on Bo’s trip.
That first part of the day matters. Catching bait gives campers another way to learn what’s swimming around the boat and how the fishing pieces fit together. On this trip, those cigar minnows set up a much bigger story.
Slow trolling.
Then the drag starts screaming.
With the live cigar minnows ready, they were slow trolling off Jacksonville. That means moving the boat slowly while the live baits swim behind it. One of those baits was about to get a lot of attention.
Then the kingfish struck. A king’s first run can be overly dramatic in the best possible way: the drag screams as line comes off the reel, and the whole feel of the boat changes in a second.
The boat goes from a level two to chaos. If you know, you know.
That’s the excitement of a hard-running fish, with Captain Don there to guide the action. For anyone new to the sound, the drag is the reel’s resistance system: it lets line pull out under pressure as the fish runs.
Bo stayed with that king mackerel through a 20-minute fight and landed it on June 11, 2026. It would turn out to be an IGFA world-record catch.
How big was the record catch?
Take a guess at the weight of Bo’s king mackerel.
That’s 11.45 kilograms, and an IGFA Junior Men’s 15-kg (30 lb) Line Class World Record for king mackerel.
I was waiting
at the dock.
Captain Don had let me know they had a possible record. I was waiting when the boat came in.
Between the fish blood on the deck and the looks on the kids’ faces, you could tell they’d had a great day. There’s a lot of excitement in a boat coming home like that, especially when one of the catches might belong in the record books.
We got the measurements and video to document the catch. At the dock, it was a possible record. The official recognition came later, when the International Game Fish Association approved Bo’s catch and featured it in its September 2026 world-record roundup.
That’s a pretty good day at fishing camp: catch your bait, fish it with Captain Don, fight a king mackerel and come back to the dock with a story that keeps getting better.
From catching bait
to the record books.
- Start with bait
Cigar minnows on a sabiki
The crew catches live cigar minnows, one of our favorite summer baits in Jacksonville.
- Out on the water
Slow trolling with Captain Don
The live baits are swimming behind the boat when the king mackerel strikes.
- June 11, 2026
The run and a 20-minute fight
Bo lands the fish after the kind of strike that changes the energy of the whole boat.
- Back at the dock
Measurements and video
I’m waiting for the boat. We document the catch as a possible record.
- September 2026
The official announcement
The IGFA features Bo’s newly approved Junior Men’s line-class world record.
A world record,
down to the details.
Bo earned the IGFA Junior Men’s 15-kg (30 lb) Line Class World Record for king mackerel. The full title matters: it identifies the species, division and line class for this achievement.
- Angler
- Bo Freidl
- Species
- King mackerel
- Captain
- Don Dingman
- Location
- Off Jacksonville, Florida
- Bait
- Live cigar minnow
- Fight
- 20 minutes
A quick detail for new anglers: the “30 lb” is the line-class category. The fish itself weighed 25 pounds, 4 ounces, or 11.45 kilograms.
Source: International Game Fish Association, World Records for September 2026, published September 24, 2026. See the “Freidl’s King Mackerel” section for the official announcement.
That’s the kind of story
we love at camp.
The record is Bo’s, and we’re proud of him. The day also brings together so much of what we want campers to experience: catching bait, learning why a captain chooses it, putting it in the water and finding out what happens next.
Our guided charter trips give young anglers time on the water with experienced captains. Some campers arrive already knowing their favorite bait. Others are learning what a sabiki rig is for the first time. There’s room for both.
Congratulations, Bo, and thank you to Captain Don for being part of this catch. It’s a camp fishing story we’ll be telling for a while.
More days on the water
A few more moments from North Florida Fishing Camp. Swipe through real days of fishing and learning together.
