Alabama’s state record for Cubera Snapper has sat at 84.90-pounds since just last year (the previous record was 52-pounds and had been held since 1988), but that’s all about to change. The 17-year-old Alabama state record is about to be shattered by a fish caught last Saturday 40 miles off Dauphin Island, Alabama by angler LaDon Swann. It took LaDon Swann 30 minutes to get his prized catch into the boat, but once he was able to get it to the scales Mr. Swann realized he was the new (pending) IGFA Alabama state record holder for Cubera Snapper when his fish weighed in at a ridiculous 94.2-pounds, a full 10-pounds more than the previous state record.
Cubera snapper are one of the largest, toothiest, tastiest, and meanest species of fish found in the Gulf of Mexico, and that makes the cubera snapper one of the most sought after game fish throughout The South. They’ve got these fangs that protrude from their mouths, sticking out from the underbite like a bulldog, making them one of the most menacing looking fish you’ll ever see….That, and they fight like hell.
94.2 pounds? That's a big snapper. Congrats on the catch, LaDon and Gage! http://t.co/fChydtbq2g (via @aldotcom) pic.twitter.com/rACsI2GqBD
— Alabama Seafood (@ALSeafood) August 18, 2015
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The most recent Alabama state record for cubera snapper barely stood for a year before LaDon Swann demolished it. That fish, also a f*cking dinosaur, was also caught in the waters off Dauphin Island, which seems to be a very fertile ground these days for catching MASSIVE cubera snapper.
LaDon Swann’s pending IGFA Alabama State Record Cubera Snapper was picked up by the local news, and AL.com reports:
The rod bowed as soon as the bait hit bottom.
Thirty minutes later, LaDon Swann had hauled in an apparent Alabama state record: a massive cubera snapper weighing 94.2 pounds.
“When it came to the top, I thought ‘grouper,’ but then thought, ‘It’s awfully red,'” Swann said, describing the events of last Friday as he and friends fished in waters 40 miles south of Dauphin Island. “As soon as I saw those teeth, I knew right away it was a cubera. I said, ‘That’s a big one.'”The fish is almost 10 pounds heavier than Brett Rutledge’s 84.90-pounder that set Alabama’s cubera record in July last year, dethroning a mere 52-pound cubera that had held the title since 1988.
The current International Game Fish Association World Record is held by Marion Rose, who landed a 124-pound, 12-ounce behemoth while fishing the Garden Banks off Louisiana in 2007.
Swann said that he and his boat mates were conserving bait Friday, fishing one rod at a time, because his livewell wasn’t working and they couldn’t keep as many hardtails alive as normal.
He put a hardtail on the hook and on the first drop of the day, felt the heavy tug moments after the bait hit bottom.
“I asked my son Gage if he wanted to take it and he said, ‘No, you take it.’ So it could have just as well been him on the rod as me,” he said.
Oh man, I can’t imagine how much sh*t my dad would give me until the end of days if he asked me if I wanted to take the rod, I did, and went on to catch a state record cubera snapper. He’d never, ever, ever let me live that down. How it was really his fish, and how he let me catch it, etc etc. I can only hope that LaDon’s song Gage never lets him live down the fact that Gage could’ve caught that fish.
[AL.com]