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Devon Larratt is one of the strongest men on earth. He’s a World Arm Wrestling champion and ex-special forces. But when it comes to battling a 400+ pound goliath grouper with a fishing rod he got all that he could handle and then some.
Larratt and Layne Norton, a world champion powerlifter, recently went fishing with Josh Jorgensen from BlacktipH, one of the largest fishing channels on YouTube and they went out in search of enormous goliath grouper and sharks.
First up on the rod was Devon Larratt who probably anticipated fighting a goliath grouper to be a cake walk considering how strong he is. But it took multiple people holding him in the boat with Devon Larratt fighting for his life to keep the rod tip up and get the fish to the surface.
For anyone out there doubting Devon Larratt’s strength, here is absolutely dominating Donald Trump Jr. in an arm wrestling contest and toying with the former President’s son who gets to use two hands and still can’t win:
For context, goliath grouper is a fish that’s found all over Florida in both the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The IGFA fishing world record for goliath was caught in Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island in Florida, just north of Jacksonville near the Georgia border, way back in 1961 when angler Lynn Joyner reeled in a 680-pounder!!!
There’s a GOOD chance that record would have been broken by now but the species has been protected in Florida waters since 1990 and in the Caribbean since 1993. For decades there was a complete moratorium on keeping the species but that changed last year when the state of Florida loosened regulations for the first time in 33 years.
However, they still made it exceedingly difficult to keep goliath grouper as only 200 harvest permits are issued here in Florida for the species and there is a slot limit between 24 to 36 inches. That means only 200 people get to keep fish, and they have to win a huge lottery before that in order to get a permit, and then they can only keep a fish that measures between 24 and 36 inches and definitely not one of the 600+ pounders or the 400+ pouunder like seen above.
Not to be forgotten in the video is what Josh from BlacktipH calls a ‘likely Florida state record bull shark‘ which they estimated to be 600 pounds and the state record is 517 pounds:
What a beast of a fish.