‘Mission: Impossible.’ Skyway encounter with goliath grouper was scene out of the movies
There’s a good chance angler Jay Cross has spent more time on the Skyway Fishing Piers than anyone else over the past few years. Cross, who works in both the south and north bait shops, also fishes from the bridge when he’s not working at them.
“I’ve been fishing the Skyway for almost 23 years,” Cross said. “Before the whole virus thing it wasn’t that busy. Then we were very busy as it was one of the last things open. And since it reopened we’ve been slammed. More recently. a lot of anglers are trying to get gag grouper before the season closes.”
Over the past few weeks Cross has seen quite a few big gags coming over the rails of the fishing pier.
“There’s a few rock piles out there where the big grouper have been. ‘Grouper Mike’ Gaby got a 34-inch gag last week. We’ve been destroyed a bunch on it as well and eventually we pulled off a small goliath grouper, so that might be what’s been destroying us.”
In addition to smaller grouper, Cross, and his friends who frequently fish the pier known as the Skyway Misfits Crew, enjoy playing tug of war with the bigger goliaths that now frequent the pier.
“There’s probably thousands of them under each pier,” Cross detailed. “You can’t snapper fish under the bridge anymore because there’s so many of them. If you hook a bigger snapper it will get eaten by a goliath before you have a chance to get it up.”
At night, the pier is a popular shark destination.
“There’s not as many boats at night as during the day, so you can get baits way out,” Cross said, describing the use of heavy tackle with big baits. He makes 400-pound wire leaders that are 10-feet long, giving the abrasiveness needed against massive sharks like bulls and hammerheads they target.
On a recent night, Cross’s friend Jake Boyington borrowed one of his leaders, but found himself tangled up to another one of the bridge’s goliaths.
“I saw it when he got it up, it was probably a 250 to 300-pound fish. Since he was using one of the shark wire leaders we didn’t have a way to get the hook out easily.”
Cross, who was working at the time, closed up the bait shop and went to assist the release of the massive goliath grouper. Instead of pulling the fish up, Cross went down.
“We have a rope that we use to pull in big sharks up to 400 pounds on the bridge to release them. That’s when I tied the rope around me and went down to take the hook out.”
In a scene that looked like it was from the movie “Mission: Impossible,” Cross dangles from the rope around his waist with pliers in hand. His friends hold him tight from the fishing pier above. In a process that took about a minute, he’s able to free the large hook after controlling his spinning while near the large fish. The fish kicks away, and Cross is pulled back to the bridge.
“The whole thing for me was about the preservation of the fish. I knew with that long heavy leader it probably would have gotten tangled up in the structure and died. Normally, we don’t use that tackle on goliaths so it presented the problem when it ate the shark bait.”
When targeting goliaths, Cross uses a 900H Diawa on a broomstick-esque rod allowing him to winch them up. He pinches the barb down on those hooks, allowing an easier release on the goliaths he’s landed up to 300 pounds. The barb on the shark rig made the release more difficult, but he was able to get it done.
“That rope, I trusted that rope,” said Cross. “I never even thought about it failing or what I would have done if I went in. I’ve done a lot of crazy stuff out there, so it seemed fine to me.”