Outdoors Column | A bad day for fishing ends with a great big surprise

When the governor’s office announced an additional six American red snapper fishing days, most anglers took the news with hesitant optimism. Last year recreational anglers received the same six additional days before it was extended to eight days as the result of a tropical storm. It was rough, and few made it offshore due to the poor conditions.

Weekend one of this year was met with north to east winds 20-30 mph and seas upwards of five to seven feet, leaving boats at home.

Last weekend, the second available for red snapper, was also rough but a few hardcore anglers decided to make the run in sloppy seas in search of their additional red snapper quota.

“Normally we fish when we can, not when we have to,” said Ryan Yeck, who ventured out Saturday on a 36-foot Contender with his fishing Team Smishsmortian. “It was sloppy. There was a following sea that was about two to four feet. While we were fishing it seemed like it was three to six foot seas, not stuff we normally fish in.”

After a long ride 80-miles offshore Yeck and friends dropped Hogball jigs to the bottom 220-feet below.

“It was good, There were no pigs but we limited on red snapper in an hour. That’s when we started slowly working our way in.”

To make the ride more tolerable they trolled east. That’s when they discovered a fishy show on their electronics coming from the bottom below.

“We stopped to fish it and hoped it was a new red snapper or mango hole. Eric Haeck dropped a 1/2-ounce jig to the bottom on a G. Loomis rod with a Stella 5000 and 25-pound braid. He got a hit, and it was a good one. It took off like when you hook a goliath grouper or a shark and he was getting overpowered on the light rod.”

Haeck felt it was a shark, and put as much pressure on it as he could. Yeck was surprised the line didn’t break, and the mystery fish slowly worked it’s way surface bound. Since the boat was drifting, they eventually ended up away from the spot so the fish was cleared from structure. After 30-minutes Yeck looked down and saw quite the surprise.

“I thought we had a world record mangrove snapper. I saw the red and yelled ‘holy (expletive)’. We couldn’t find a gaff quick enough because we thought it was a shark, only a big net, and somehow that fish fit in the net perfectly. When we lifted it in the boat I saw the teeth and realized it was a cubera snapper!”

The light tackle held up and the friends headed east back toward Tampa Bay. They weighed the cubera in at 47-pounds.

For Yeck, it was a trip he won’t soon forget.

“That was a fish we shouldn’t have caught on a day we shouldn’t have been out there,” he said.