‘Gruntzilla.’ How a father-daughter birthday fishing trip almost set a world record
While many anglers move off spots when catching grunts, Jamie Andrews doesn’t mind taking a mess of them home for a meal.
“They’re great to eat,” he explained. “I like to go and catch a bunch of them. It can be pretty fun.”
With his daughter’s birthday occurring in February, Andrews took advantage of a Hubbard’s Marina offer, getting her on the boat when she said she wanted to fish. The goal was to bring home some fish for dinner with the hopeful hogfish and snapper, but grunts wouldn’t disappoint the pair.
“It was a morning trip and the weather was great. We went on a half-day trip and the bite was good all day. Not much time we weren’t getting a bite between grunts, squirrel fish, small grouper, puffers and other stuff you get on a half-day trip. I even got a 17-inch hogfish,” Andrews explained.
“Then I hooked something I thought was a grouper. It was on the bottom and not moving or coming up. I started seeing color and thought ‘What the heck is that?’ When I got it to the surface, I joked to the mates and said ‘Hey I got the world’s largest grunt here, you might want to get the gaff.’”
Mates on party boats see their fair share of grunts, a fish that populates most nearshore hard bottom and is easy to catch. When they pulled this one onto the boat, Andrews said they were even more amazed and excited than he was.
“The mates called even the captain to come see it. The one said he was 52 and started fishing at 8 months old and had never seen one that big. Most of them we get are 1 pound at most, and this one was so much bigger than that. It measured 22 inches.”
Back at the dock in John’s Pass the “Gruntzilla” showcase continued. The mates called coworkers from other boats to come see the unique catch. After a little debate, it was determined to be a white grunt and not a margate, and one almost at world record size.
“It took a while to find the world record size. Mine was 5.6 pounds, and the world record is just over 6 pounds. It’s pretty amazing I almost got a world record that close to shore from a fish that is caught hundreds of times on each one of these trips.”
