300 Pound Jewfish Caught; Venice, Florida

Knowing The Rules

Winds and a cold front this past weekend are making the water a green murk around Venice pier and inlets, and fish cannot hit what they cannot see but in the case of our Spanish mackerel, they must be wearing contacts. Droves of schools of on again, off again action all day through the weeklong. Lull periods filled with mad bites of Blues followed by dancing Ladies in numbers unfathomable! All taking place across a sea of bait soup mix of threads, greenies, glass, needle, pins and skipping ballyhoo in a whimsical moment out of Disney. What a week this has been. I even watched as YMCA Barry cast a chrome/red head Gotcha out and on the drop, a three-foot shark darted up from the murk to annihilate the offering. A couple of schools of wondering Bonita came in this week, to which my surprise I caught one on a sabiki, indeed. A few large cruising schools of Jack Crevalles bolted threw at lightning speeds, producing a couple of action packed hook ups on light tackle, a quick thrill moment, till bing it is gone, lure and all. The Kings are on the down side now with but only two caught this week and both under thirty pounds. Baits of choice for the Spanish were that of the hardware variety to include the standards of the Clark spoons, Gotcha in an assortment of colors, and the heavy sabiki’s with the thirty or forty-pound drops. The lures that produced the biggest, the most fish this week goes’ to the Diamond Jigs, Diamond Jig knock-offs, and the 1 1/8 ounce Demon Bait by Down-East Sportscraft.

Usually as the sun is getting ready for bed the big boy are starting to feed. Lately though, this has not been the case. It has been the opposite. The sunsets and everybody goes to bed. The lights turn off and all go home, only the anglers out on the pier remain. Soaking the baits to a few crabs because it would seem the crabs went home too! Until the last two nights, with Monday being the icebreaker. Sunday night started as most lately, with one finding a spot within a crowed pier of rods on the rails and baits to the water offering a delight to please any fish in the area. Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to more open space, as more anglers found themselves heading back home, from a very unproductive pier and by seven o’clock it was but a couple of die hard fishermen left. During the day, mackerel were the main event and such, Spanish was the bait of choice. That is why we were using Bluefish. Everybody else was using macks with out a nibble so why do the same? Blues were on the bite earlier in the day too, just not as thick. No sooner had our Bluefish head been in the water when the six took off energetically. The clicker sounded as if it was ready to burn its self out, running parallel to the “T” across seven other fishing lines and then throwing the bait. “Fish On, Fish Gone!”

You should have heard the discussions and seen the tangling mess this fish left in his departure well you get the picture. By the time we left a number of baby sharks were caught and Jesse had tagged most of them. I have seen him tag hundreds of sharks throughout the years; I wonder where they all go?

One-hundred pound Diamond matched to an Avet plus a four-hundred pound monofilament leader and a Spanish Mackerel head spell dinner pitched out from the end of the “T” by our infamous ‘Goliath Man’ YMCA Barry, talk about aliases, in a quest for the big boy on the pier here at Sharky’s on the Pier in Venice Florida. Pitched to the left side of the pier, Barry set his rod in free spool and the wait was on. Other anglers, along with Jesse (86 years young?), had rods on the rails too set in a wait for a big fish to bite. The only fish reports were that of hordes of macks again in the daylight hours and the one run of the night before, all were out to try in another throw of the die. Fishing is a game of patience and you generally will lose those who have not much of that when it come to shark fishing because it can be very slow but when you do get a bite, it is very exhilarating. By seven o’clock the pier was empty with the exception of a couple of tourists, some light tackle enthusiasts and us die-hard anglers. Barry’s Avet let out a slow moan of eight clicks with an abrupt stop. The line went slack as Barry quickly picked up the rod, reeled the slack, placed it back into free-spool and allowed the fish to again move slowly off towards the horizon as he dropped the Avet into gear … “FISH ON!” This critter moved out and back in a slow steady progress to a point where had it been May or June, this would have been a big powerful turtle but with it being the end of November, the odds of a turtle were slim to none but still possible.

With the rod tip pointed straight down and swirls of water just underneath the gaffs came out, cameras ready and snowbirds hanging to the sides of the rail when Barry exclaimed,” Gary, he’s going out and I’m letting off on him so he can have the line.” The fights back on again. By this time Barry could feel a head shake and he blurted out” it ain’t no turtle!’ To which someone in the crowd suggested that it might be a nurse and on that note Barry shouted, “it is not a nurse shark either, I think it a Jew.” Barry was referring to our Florida Goliath Grouper, Epinephelus itajara, an Inshore Florida fish found NEARSHORE often around docks, in deep holes, and on ledges; young often occur in estuaries, especially around oyster bars; more abundant in southern Florida than in northern waters. The Florida State record is around 680 pounds. As Barry finally took the last cranks down on the Avet, we could see the dark blue coloring of his leader breech the surface along with a washing machine agitation swish across the top of the water under his rod. Briefly breaking the surface this gigantic giant of a Goliath, crested the surface and dug back down to the bottom fourteen feet below. A twenty-eight minute battle with the fish, now to touch the leader. It is not an official caught fish unless one can touch the leader with at least one hand and in this three-hundred pound beauty; we needed to remove the hook and get her back out and on her way. Lip gaffing was out due to the fact of the positioning of the hook set and my type of gaff, so we proceeded to rail by rail, drag the fish on the line down the pier, to the beach for a quick hook release, photo and back on top for more fish.

At this point in time there were a couple of experts fishing atop alongside us who, instead of offering to help or offer aid when in the water releasing the fish decided to impede the situation by causing a scene where none was called for. I tried to let them know that yes this fish is protected but yes we can take it to the beach and remove the hooks so as to give it a better survival rate and if they were not to help then to stay out of the way. Apparently, they do not know the rules. The ironic thing was that they were catching catfish and leaving them on the deck to die but they were concerned about the welfare of this Jewfish.

And that reminds me, the story of their political incorrectness of the name “Jew” fish is far from being anything demeaning. Back in the twenties and thirties when sportfishing was at its infancy here in Florida, Goliath Grouper were called June Fish because of their grouping in that month. Northerners, tourists, or as we call them now, snowbirds came down and thought they knew what they were talking about and called them Jewfish, not June Fish. The name stuck because someone did not know what they were talking about.

Well, they called the law and told them we were a bunch of people were out on the pier killing a Jewfish. The law came out, as we photographed, released, and watched this wonder of nature swim off with all her grace and we went back to more fishing out on the end of the pier. For Barry, this makes his third Goliath caught off the Venice pier. His First topped just over four-hundred pounds; second around two-fifty and this, one at three makes Barry our “Goliath Man” of the pier.