Maryland man spends 8 hours catching 300lb swordfish, ends up in hospital with infection

Peter Schultz and his four teammates reeled in a 301-pound swordfish. The catch set a Maryland record, but the story gets even crazier from there. FOX 5's Josh Rosenthal explains.

This year the Big Fish Classic Tournament more than lived up to its name.

Peter Schultz and his four teammates reeled in a 301-pound swordfish. The catch set a Maryland record, but the story gets even crazier from there.

"I would give my right hand to do that over again," Schultz told Fox 5. "It was totally worth it, it was epic."

The fish, caught off the Ocean City coast, didn’t give up easily. It fought Schultz, a D.C.-based contractor, for more than eight hours. Schultz was so scared it would get away, he said he never took his hand off the reel.

"They will sit like a submarine for an hour and you can’t move them, and then they will torpedo towards the boat at 40, 50 miles an hour," he described. "Not an exaggeration."

Eventually, Schultz won the battle, taking home a massive $542,648 check, but little did he know, the war wasn’t over yet.

"Well, I weighed 185 pounds last week. I just left the hospital and now I weigh 174 pounds," he laughed Thursday, explaining that he ended up in the hospital because all of that reeling gave him a blister that became infected. He was released Thursday afternoon.

"Shout out to 12 Labours CrossFit Annapolis. These girls man, I’m a skinny dude, and these girls just whipped me into shape," Schultz summed up, smiling. "If it wasn’t for them, there’s no way I’m reeling that fish in."

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Schultz said he plans to give his teammates a piece of that half-million-dollar check.