Giant Black Grouper Florida
Just this last weekend, Ft Myers based Alex Newman was fishing the Ronald McDonald House Offshore Rodeo and Reggae Party, a charity fundraiser tournament that Alex has fished and placed in before.
“The fishing was actually pretty slow, we started off catching a few African pompano and a nice red grouper, but it was not as fast paced as normal, said Alex Newman. We had just battled and broken off a giant fish, that we figured must have been a goliath grouper.
I dropped a big live bait back down on my Penn 50w International reel strapped to a custom Matt Sewell rod. When I got bit, I put everything I had into pulling, thinking it may be another goliath. It would take five feet of line, but I would gain ten. This went on for a while and I don’t even remember the fight, I was just running on adrenaline.”
Alex went on, “We looked over the side and could see yellow, which made us think goliath, but as it popped to the surface, the incredible colors of a giant black grouper came into view and we got the gaff in it and went crazy. We had caught some big black grouper before, and did not think this one was that much bigger, except that we could hardly pick it up. I barely fit in our back fish box, and we had a heck of a time getting it back out. We headed back to the weigh-in and called the girls to mess with them and see what had been weighed so far. We got a huge roar from the crowd as we hoisted the big black over the gunnel. To our surprise, the grouper weighed 124.18-pounds, which gave us a winning total weight for the tournament. I’m also submitting the catch to the IGFA as the official weight is slightly larger than the current world record for black grouper.”
Alex was fishing with boat owner Eli Mendes who owns Tropic Trailer, Danny Watkins, Louis Santagata, and Jason Schreyer of Sunset Air.
“Offshore fishing is always a team effort, and we had a great crew that day”, Alex said. “This is a fish I will always remember and something to tell my kids.”
Photo Credit: Alex Newman
