Jack Vitek is world records coordinator for the International Game Fish Association. In the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of the organization's publication, the International Angler, he said that 746 applications for world records were submitted this year, and that half of the fish they represented were released alive.

Honors were accorded in the same magazine to Mike Livingston for his world record 405-pound yellowfin taken on the Vagabond. The fish broke a record that Curt Wiesenhutter held for 34 years. Other notable 2011 records:

Fiona Stallard of Perth, Australia got a six-pound line class record for her 46-pound, four-ounce wahoo. She got her big skinny with a Halco lure called a Lazer Pro on the troll off Fiji. The Halco lures are distributed in the US by Accurate.

A 156-pound, 13-ounce amberjack was picked up in November on a vertical jig fished by Hideyuki Nemoto of Japan was one of 21 new records that went to that country last year. Alaska produced two all-tackle rockfish records: a 25-pound, 14-ounce bocaccio (known locally as salmon grouper) from Elfin Cove; and a four-pound, one-ounce China rockfish, from the depth of the Gulf of Alaska.

The depths of Black's Beach in La Jolla yielded two California corbina tippet records for Erv Wheeler: five pounds, four ounces on four-pound tippet; and five pounds three ounces on eight-pound tippet.