How a Tampa Bay angler landed the ‘fish of a lifetime’ deep in the Gulf of Mexico

When Drew Schreiber and crew headed west Monday afternoon for the deep Gulf, they were prepared for an overnight trip to target some unique species from the continental shelf.

“I’ve done a handful of those deepwater trips. I started about three years ago and fell in love with it immediately,” Schreiber described. “We bring electric reels for the deepwater and some slow-pitch jig rod setups. We had 440 gallons of gas and ran out to 620 feet to start.”

With calm weather, they started catching some unique deepwater grouper species. Of all the normal gag, red, scamp and other species the Gulf holds, Schreiber said the best eating species is one they wanted to target.

“Yellow edge is hands down the best grouper in the ocean to eat. There’s nothing like it. We ended up with seven of them from this trip and two snowy grouper as well. And then we had 16 queen snapper, which were my first.”

Fishing electric reels to assist with the depth, they rig with a pair of 6/0 circle hooks and 100-pound leader, allowing two baits and the chance at two fish. Dropping the length of two football fields requires three pounds of lead to get the baits down, and no one wants to crank up by hand to check baits if a bite doesn’t happen.

But then when a bite does happen, the excitement of exotic deepwater species on the other end leads to anticipation from the long journey to the surface.

“Tuesday morning I missed a giant fish on the sunrise bite. Around 10:20 I got another big bite and this time I did two cranks down on the drag when the fish was about 50 feet off the bottom. The rod was bent over so I knew it was a big fish,” Schreiber recalled.

“About 250 feet off the bottom, it gave up. The guys were ready with the gaff and when they looked over they said it looked like two big yellow edge grouper. But when it got closer to the surface they said ‘That’s one BIG yellow edge!’ It was the fish of a lifetime!”

The big yellow edge hit the deck and the crew took in the moment, getting some pictures and putting it on the scale. It was just over 47 pounds, a giant from the deep.

As they began their 200-mile journey home, the crew highly anticipated what the real size was. But the trip ran into a hiccup.

“We ran out of gas in the Egmont channel. Boat US brought us 10 gallons, so we were able to slowly make our way back home.”

Back in cell phone range, they discovered their fish was close to world record size. In 2008, a 46-pound, 2-ounce fish set the record caught out of Virginia. But it was beaten in 2012 out of Alabama with a 48.56-pound record-setter. Back at the dock, theirs lost some weight after being in a cooler all day and ended up being just shy when it was weighed just under 47 pounds.

But Schreiber wasn’t disappointed at all.

“The best part of the trip was the experience of fishing with good people and doing what I love.”