Outdoors | Cubera snapper in shallow water surprises lucky spear fisherman
"I've never seen the water that clean in the Gulf of Mexico. It was like we were in the Florida Keys," described Kiefer Woods after diving in 40 feet of water last weekend. "We could see mangrove snapper while we floated on the surface, allowing us to free dive down and shoot them."
What Woods couldn't see in the wreck below soon turned his dive partners into a frenzy.
Four other divers -- Dave Mize, Ben Maxwell, Mark Herring and Manny Galvao -- accompanied Woods as they enjoyed the beautiful visibility. Hovering over a 150-foot-long barge four watched the bow, while Mize cruised to the stern to take a look inside the wreck.
"Dave came up screaming, 'Cubera! Cubera!'" Woods said. "This got our attention, and we all swam over to see what was going on. He shot a huge cubera snapper, and his float line was hanging out of the wreck with the spear still in the fish."
Normally found in deep waters off the west coast of Florida, cubera snapper are the largest of the snapper family. Mize described not believing it was a cubera snapper at first because it was so big, thinking it was a goliath grouper that also called the wreck home. Finding one in shallow water is a stroke of luck for any avid spear fisherman, but this one wasn't about to give up easily.
The cubera took refuge further inside the barge and with the chafing, Mize's line soon gave way. The divers watched all parts of the wreck to make sure the wounded snapper didn't swim off.
That's when Maxwell dived down to discover the snapper once again. "He found it in a small hole, then went around to a different side of the wreck where he was able to get a shot off. All we could see were his fins sticking out when he was inside the wreck," Woods explained.
Maxwell struck the cubera, but it still remained wedged inside with two spears inside of it. Herring came in from the barge's other side, where he also put a shot inside the snapper, this time in its head.
"Everyone took turns trying to get it out of the wreck. Finally Dave wrestled it out and Ben went down to help him swim it up," said Woods.
At the surface they finally slid it into the tuna door of the Intrepid after nearly an hour of up and down dives to claim their trophy. The crew took the cubera snapper to a scale, where it topped 95 pounds! That proves once again there are no fences in the Gulf of Mexico.
The world record cubera snapper taken by spear gun was in Brazil in 2006. It weighed 122.4 pounds.
This story was originally published April 12, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Outdoors | Cubera snapper in shallow water surprises lucky spear fisherman ."