DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — What began as a routine swordfishing trip turned into the catch of a lifetime for longtime South Florida angler Laurel David, who reeled in a rare Opah — also known as a Moonfish — over the weekend.
David, who has been fishing for more than 20 years, launched her trip off the coast of Fort Lauderdale. After an uneventful first drop, she decided to give it one last try before calling it a day.
“We rigged up some bait and got everything ready to go,” David said. “We didn’t have any action on our first drop.”
But on that final attempt, David hooked something unexpected.
“Honestly, when it was coming up, it was acting like a real nice swordfish,” she recalled. “The behavior was almost identical.”
Instead of a swordfish, David brought up a brilliantly colored, round-bodied Opah — a deepwater species rarely seen in the Atlantic and almost never caught off Southeast Florida’s coast.
On Monday afternoon, she weighed the 148-pound catch at Captain Clay and Sons Seafood Market in Delray Beach, where she is one of the market’s commercial fishers.
“I’ve been dreaming of catching one of those since I was a little kid,” said David. “I don’t even have words. I’m speechless.”
Reed Brand, whose father owns the seafood market, was stunned by the catch.
“I couldn’t believe it. It’s absolutely insane,” Brand said. “It’s the equivalent of seeing Bigfoot. I think there are more Bigfoot sightings a year than Opah sightings in Southeast Florida.”
Opah, the only known fully warm-blooded fish, typically inhabit deep Pacific waters and are more commonly found near Hawaii, making David’s catch an extraordinary event for the region.