Sterling Ellis last hasn't been fishing since 14 years ago

Apr 25, 2013 13:37 GMT  ·  By

A 19-year-old Hodgkins Lymphoma sufferer from Texas has reeled in a monster 759-pound (345-kg) on a trip to Hawaii organized by the Make-A-Wish foundation.

Sterling Ellis, who has known about having the disease for two years, hasn't gone fishing since he was five years old. He bagged the behemoth off the coast of Honolulu, the Houston Chronicle mentions.

According to Julie Baldwin, his trip was sponsored by the Texas Gulf Coast & Louisiana chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The merlin he got his hands on was 11-foot (3.35-m) long, and four men struggled to reel it in. At the end of the trip, Ellis was only allowed to bring home the 3-foot (0.9-m) nose of the fish.

“He wanted to travel, to take some kind of an exotic trip. [...] One of the activities we scheduled for him through the chapter was deep-sea fishing. Obviously this is an above-average catch,” Baldwin describes.