Dinosaur Hunting

[shoefish]

Well this weekend marked a great accomplishment for me. It has been a goal of mine to catch a giant goliath grouper on a spinner, and on Saturday I got my chance. For those of you that may not have seen the last attempt, here was the report and the pictures.
Jewfish on a Spinner

Shortly after my return from that trip, with visions of giant grouper dancing in my head, Nansea and I decided to book a trip down to Key West for the holidays...I could barely contain myself as I called Pepe (http://pepescharters.com/):

"Pepe, it's Dan again...um I was the guy you took out out who was looking to catch a giant jewfish on a spinner."
"Yeah bro, I remember you...no one else has ever asked me to do that, so how could I forget?"
"Cool...well....I'm coming back."
"Really. I was at a wreck today and found your fish. The water was clear so I could see it sitting in there- it had to be almost 400 or so."
"Okay...uh...great. I'll see you in two weeks...fatten him up for me."
"Believe me, he's already all you need, and he's not going anywhere. By the way, there were a couple of huge sawfish in the area too- anyone you know ever catch one of them on a spinner?"
"Not that I know of dude."
"Cool bro, if you're lucky you might get a shot at one of those."

So fast forward to Saturday. I walked down to the dock an jumped aboard Pepe's ride- a 27' Conch. Damn is it nice.


We headed out to the spot...and pulling up to the wreck we knew it was on


For this trip I was again using my Stella 20k with PE6 on a Synit 550 rod. I was also cheating again by using bait

I put on a feisty little blue runner, sans sneakers, and was literally on within 30 seconds.


I had him on for a few minutes, but put too much pressure on it and parted the line. We laughed. Two minutes into trip and we had found what we were looking for.

For the next 45 minutes, those laughs turned to nervous silence as we wondered whether we spooked him from the wreck. Nothing was happening. My big bait was sitting there on the bottom...relaxing.

Twitch twitch...twitch twitch twitch...twitch twitch twitch twitch twitch twitch...

"He's baaaaaack"

I felt him on, and decided to let him enjoy his food for a bit so I was sure of a good hook set. Two minutes later and it was on.


After some really good back and forth (god these things are strong), we got some color and Pepe shouted "That thing is even bigger than I thought it was..take your time bro, he's a giant!" With that I backed off the drag a bit so I didn't pull the hook, and slowed down the fight, babying him boatside. When we finally got him there, he was huge- nearly as big around as he was in length. The problem now was that besides the hook in his maw, there was no way in hell to grab onto him...and with stories of people getting hooked by other unseen hooks that are left in their mouths and dragged back down to the wreck, I decided that reaching under the gill plate probably wasn't the wisest move. For those of you that don't know, it's against the law to remove goliath grouper from the water, so that wasn't an option. We did our best and had a loose lip gaff on him for a few seconds when he decided he'd had enough, snapped the gaff, and went back down. He was over 6' long, and Pepe estimated him at easily over 350#. As we couldn't remove him from the water, we'll never know, but suffice it to say that he was a giant, and is the king of his wreck.







After some celebration, we decided to try another wreck. At that second spot, I caught some more goliaths about the size of the ones from the last trip, and it further underscored the size of the giant- I was beating 60# fish like they were 5lb snapper.

Then I felt something strange on the line. It took the bait, but was just weight. No head shake, only weight. Then it ran off a few yards of line like a shark. Then weight. Then it turned, ran back towards the boat, and was weight again. As I was pumping and cranking, I noticed my PR knot coming to the surface...and then a shape. "What the..." My leader is 15' long, how can there be something that close to my PR knot? Pepe yelled "Sawfish!" We got him up, slipped a dock line over it's saw, took a few pics, and released him to get bigger. For a sense of perspective, look at where the dock line is tied off in the pic with me next to him, and then look at where that is in the other pics- it was giant.
















It was a day to remember.

Shoe

[paul708]

Great report shoe.
pics are awesome

[Shortfin]

Unreal report Dan ,One question , How sharp were the protrusions on the sawfish bill they look pretty nasty

[HOLWACHAGOT]

Awe man.....FISH? I thought you took Nansea to the keys.....You come back with fish pics.
Try to get your regenerator working before the next report.
Amazing stuff brother. Absolutely amazing.
That Sawfish looks prehistoric.

Bait STRONG!
Holwachagot

[shoefish]

Unreal report Dan ,One question , How sharp were the protrusions on the sawfish bill they look pretty nasty

Super sharp and nasty- one hack with that bill and it would be a world of hurt. We thought we were going to lose the fish before we got the dock line on it- one headshake and it would have been nothing more than a fish tale.

[bigfish4me]

Awesome stuff, whats next....blue marlin on a spinner, i wonder what the largest fish ever landed on spinning gear would be.

[SeaBiscuit]

My dear friend Danny,
I can see that you are headed down a dangerous path! catch and release strange critters? What's up with that? How about a fat swordfish on the spinning stuff (save me a loin please!). Mako shark? White marlin for the smoker?
Friends don't let friends sportfish!

Excellent stuff, as always. Keep the spinning rod adventures coming!

SeaBiscuit

[jig42na]

Nice report dude!! So did the goliath fight all the way to the top? I'm assuming it pulled like a mo-fo for the first half of water column!!!
Nice job

[shoefish]

Paul- thanks for the kind words

Geoff- I've got some other pictures that you'd probably like better

Bigfish- bring on the blue-suited one...I'm down

Nick- believe me, if that big boy hadn't been protected, we'd all be eating grouper sandwiches for the next couple of months

Jig42na- we were only in 20' of water, so the fight was pretty cool and it fought all the way to the boat. It pulled straight back to the wreck at first, then after it was stopped, it pulled laterally one way- then the other, then it settled in under the boat and it was similar to a bluefin without the circling. Because we were in shallow water I didn't get the benefit of a blown up air bladder to help out- that thing was piss and vinegar all the way. I was really impressed with the lifting power of the rod- that had been one question that was unanswered for me. Not anymore though

Thanks again for all the kind words everyone!

[clt_capt]

Nice job Dan. Both are great accomplishments, but to do both on the same trip is just icing....