Florida is home to some of the best fishing in the country.
Sometimes it takes a bit of luck to save a day on the water.
And fishermen were in the fight of their lives after they hooked one monster.
Florida fishermen brave stormy weather looking for the big one
Captain Charlie Kinman took his 38-foot fishing boat to sea out of Jupiter Inlet on the Atlantic Coast of Florida in Martin County.
Alex Leonhardt and George Maib joined for the overnight swordfishing trip.
The weather was looking hostile, but the trio decided to stick it out.
“The weather was a bit sketchy, but using radar we were able to wiggle between the bad storm patches,” Leonhardt told Outdoor Life. “The weather got worse and worse through the day and night. It got real rough, real quick. If we’d known how bad it was gonna get, we probably wouldn’t have gone that day.”
Kinman took the boat to about 30 miles offshore from Stuart, Florida.
They used dorado belly strips as bait and just 100 feet off the bottom.
At 4:30, the fishermen finally got a bite.
“The fish took the bait and swam right to the surface,” Leonhardt recalled. “We knew it was a good fish right away, and most of the time he was close to the boat.”
Florida fishermen bring in a record-breaking swordfish
Kinman was fishing with a heavy rod with a 130-pound line.
The trio worked together to bring the fish in.
“Fighting that fish was like kicking a yellowjacket nest,” Leonhardt explained. “He was pissed, coming to the boat looking to hurt something. It always charged the boat motors. So handling the boat to keep the fish away from the prop, and the line tight, takes a lot of teamwork.”
The swordfish came near the boat once again about 15 minutes after the fight began.
Leonhardt decided to use a harpoon that was similar to a flying gaffe with a dart that was four inches long and shaped like an Indian arrowhead.
The harpoon’s handle detached to give Leonhardt a second line to pull the massive swordfish in along with Kinman’s rod.
It took an hour and a half to finally bring the fish in.
“I’ve fought other swordfish longer, but never a fish like this one,” Leonhardt stated. “The fish never jumped. It was just relentless in rushing the boat. We’d turn the boat, and it would zip on by. Then it would turn around in the blink of an eye and come back to our motor. It was something else – it’d move 50 feet to the opposite side of the boat in just a second.”
The fishermen, who all had commercial licenses, began preparing the swordfish for market.
It was 15 feet long even with more than half of its sword or broadbill missing.
“The fish was missing half its broadbill,” Leonhardt said. “It had been broken a long time, and how it broke is anyone’s guess.”
It was the biggest swordfish of Leonhardt’s fishing career.
“The core weight [meat] of the fish was 668 pounds,” Leonhardt stated. “Adding 175 pounds to that total and the swordfish we estimate weighed at least 850 pounds.”
The Florida record weight for a swordfish is 612.75 pounds.
Their catch was not eligible for any records because they used a harpoon.
The International Game Fish Association record for a swordfish is 1,182 pounds, which was caught in the Pacific Ocean off Chile in 1953.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
