iStockphoto / Luis Beristain
The Destin Fishing Rodeo is an annual fishing tournament in Destin, Florida and it’s one of the Sunshine State’s premier fishing events. This year marked the 74th time the Destin Fishing Rodeo had been held and it was a special one after a 101-pound wahoo was caught, the largest ever wahoo caught in the history of the prestigious fishing tournament.
In terms of cash prizes, the Destin Fishing Rodeo doesn’t really compare to the White Marlin Open where boats are awarded millions for top prizes. But there was over $100,000 awarded to participants in the 74th annual Destin Fishing Rodeo.
But this year’s bragging rights weren’t about the money, it was all about the 101-pound wahoo caught by angler Derrick Dover who was fishing on board Muscle Memories with his dad and brother. The 101-pound wahoo broke a 12-year-old record for the largest wahoo ever caught in the Rodeo.
101 Pound Wahoo Breaks Record At Destin Fishing Rodeo
Check out this absolute beast of a wahoo. The shape of these fish has incredible. They are perfectly aerodynamic and the larger they get the more they look like swollen mini submarines:
What a hog!
How they landed their record-setting catch
According to Tina Harbuck of The Destin Log, the Muscle Memories crew including angler Derrick Dover was fishing around 30 miles southwest of Destin when they got into some feisty grouper. It was around this time they decided to switch things up and throw out some Wahoo lures.
30 minutes later, one of the reels started screaming. The massive fish struck and took off on a 45-second run before the line went completely slack.
A less experienced angler would have given up but anyone who has spent enough time on the water knows how fish can change directions at any time. What happened was the 101-pound wahoo changed directions and swam straight back toward the boat. So he started cranking the reel as fast as humanly possible to catch up to the fish and the fight was back on. The lure it bit is called a ‘Jag-A-Hoo Blue Water Candy’.
They eventually got the massive fish back to the boat and the rest was history.
There were some other epic fish caught in the Destin Fishign Rodeo in addition to the Wahoo
There were all sorts of massive fish caught in this year’s fishing rodeo including a 50.4-pound sailfish, a 159.6-pound yellowfin tuna, two sharks weighed over 300 pounds, and a Warsaw Grouper that tipped the scales at 333.8 pounds.
Here are some photos and videos from the Destin Fishing Rodeo’s Instagram account. Here, they are making a traditional Japanese ‘Gyotaku’ print of the 333.8-pound warsaw grouper by applying ink to the fish:
This view of that same Warsaw Grouper is spectacular:
Warsaw Grouper grow to enormous sizes. Here is a 400-pound specimen caught in Sarasota, Florida and another 301-pound fish recently caught by Tom Cruise’s son.