Latest giant grouper tips scale at 226

The summer of huge fish continues for local offshore anglers. Another tournament, another huge warsaw grouper at 226 pounds weighed in by team Sea Saw/Blenker Boatsworks for the title at the Sarasota Slam.

“The teams are evolving and getting better at what they’re doing,” said BJ Grant, captain of team Sea Saw/Blenker Boatworks. “Teams like Seaveeche, Jumbo Shrimp and us have figured it out a bit.”

The Sarasota Slam consisted of three offshore divisions, one for grouper, one for snapper and one for a miscellaneous fish (non shark or billfish), with cash prizes awarded for the biggest fish in each.

The tournament is held over a shorter timeframe, with less than 24 hours to fish between Friday and Saturday afternoon. For this reason, Grant and his team ran west of Anna Maria Island to maximize fishing time, where they started fishing in 180 feet of water Friday night for large cubera snapper.

“We lost two cuberas while fishing at night. We caught a huge goliath grouper and big yellowtail snapper but didn’t think they would place,” Grant said.

“At daybreak we ran out to a wreck in 575 feet of water, where we got our butts handed to us by big warsaws before.”

On their third drift, the monster warsaw decided to bite their T-RX Avet rigged with 200-pound test. It was as the team was coming off the backside of the wreck, meaning their drift would pull them further away while helping keep the beast from returning to his home.

When the grouper hit the surface, redemption was felt by Grant.

“That was the biggest one we’ve caught; it was a special moment for us. We’ve lost a lot of big ones up and down the coast and had a lot of trial and error on tackle. I think we’ve finally got it dialed in.”

Dialed in is a humble way to put it. Over the course of the spring and summer, team Sea Saw has weighed in four warsaws in four tournaments, with the smallest one at 120 pounds. For the victory in the grouper division, they received a check for $3,600.

More surprisingly, Grant’s team found themselves collecting another check when their 4.7-pound yellowtail snapper would take home $3,600 more for the biggest snapper.

“I thought someone would have a mutton or something else. We weren’t even thinking that snapper would take it,” he said.

This story was originally published August 13, 2016 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Latest giant grouper tips scale at 226."