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A fishing trip pitted former Dolphin Zach Thomas, above left, and ex-pro wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson against goliath grouper in a tag-team battle for the ages.
Trying to catch a goliath grouper on a rod and reel will leave you sweating and out of breath.
Youmight even end up going for a swim.
“They pull like hell,” Capt. Richard Stanczyk said. “They’ll literally pull you out of the boat.”
Stanczyk, 72, who owns BudN’Mary’s Marina in Islamorada, has caught hundreds of goliath grouper up to 500 pounds— and he is not exaggerating.
Capt. Brian Sanders of Davie once took former Miami Dolphins All-Pro linebacker Zach Thomas and former professional wrestling star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson fishing out of Chokoloskee Island for goliath grouper in the Gulf of Mexico.
It turned out to be a sort of tag-team event for the two powerful, physically fit athletes when they hooked what Sanders estimated to be goliaths of 300 pounds or more.
“Theywere bear-hugging each other,” Sanders said. “Therewas so much drag on the reel, the fish would run and itwould almost lift the person overboard.
“We kept messing with Dwayne, saying that itwas like him fighting against Triple H.”
Sanders used what’s known as a 50-wide fishing reel, which is something an angler would use to catch marlin or tuna.
He said the reel was spooled with 60- or 80-pound line andwas topped with100 feet of 150-pound line. The reel’s drag was set at 40 to 50 pounds.
Stanczyk said he wouldn’t use anything less than an 80-pound reel filled with100-pound line to catch a big goliath.
The reason for the heavy tackle is to keep a big fish from easily pulling the line off the reel as it heads for the nearest wreck.
The greater the strength of the line, the more pressure an angler can put on a fish. In the case of a 300-pound goliath, 100-pound line is much better at keeping the fish away from awreck than 20-pound line.
“If you under-tackle a goliath grouper, you’re going to break him off,” Stanczyk said.
That commonly happens to anglers who are fishing for other species around the wrecks where goliaths hang out.
“We’ve had times where we had keeper cobias, 20-pound cobias, thatwe were getting ready to net and a 300-pound goliath swims out fromunderneath the boat and eats it,” Sanders said. “As soon as you hook a decent-sized snook, there are four goliath grouper trying to eat it.
“They’re pretty resourceful fish and ferocious feeders. They eat whatever they want whenever they want.”
Stanczyk has caught goliaths on everything from sharks and cobias to Spanish mackerel and large crevalle jacks. He uses big circle hooks, which hook fish in the corner of the mouth.
Sanders, who’s caught goliaths on mackerel, 5- to 10-pound jacks, half a barracuda and even a spadefish, uses 9-0 to 12-0 hooks, which are typically used to catch marlin and sharks. He said a big goliath can straighten smaller hooks.
He said one of the big goliaths caught by Thomas and Johnson that memorable day “had six different leaders hanging out of its mouth, from real light line to heavier line from someone whowas actually trying to catch it.”