By David Rainer:
Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Judging by the number of record fish caught in the past year and a half, it appears Alabama’s Gulf Coast saltwater fishing is doing just fine.
Ten records were established in 2014, and five more have been established in 2015 with several months left to fish.
One of the most impressive fish that made the record book was a snowy grouper caught by Tyler Kennedy, of Mobile. That fish weighed 68 pounds, 9 ounces. The world record is 70 pounds, 7 ounces.
Another record was a king mackerel caught by Jeremy Goldman during last year’s Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo. That fish was a dollop of fish slime away from 70 pounds. The official weight was 69 pounds, 15.84 ounces.
The cubera snapper caught by Brett Rutledge, of Mobile, was another impressive catch at 84 pounds, 9 ounces. Also on the big-fish list was a jack crevalle caught by Joseph Condry Pope IV, of Alabaster, Ala., that weighed 40 pounds, 2 ounces.
Others on the 2014 record listed included a 5-pound Darwin’s slimehead caught by Lance Smith, of Lithia Springs, Ga.; a scorpionfish caught by Ike Farmer, of Salem, Ala., that weighed 4 pounds, 4 ounces; a sharksucker caught by Dylan Andrew Bauman, of Spanish Fort, Ala., at 5 pounds, 13.2 ounces; a great northern tilefish caught by Dick Paul, of Pensacola, Fla., at 35 pounds, 5.6 ounces; a tomtate caught by Lauren Ogle, of Muncie, Ind., at 1 pound, 4.6 ounces; and a whopper of a big eye tuna caught by Bobby Abernathy, of Merryville, La., at 236 pounds.
The first fish to make the record book in 2015 was a 13-pound, 9-ounce monster of a sheepshead caught by Branden Ryan Collier of Irvington, Ala.
Other fish to make the book in 2015 included a huge bull shark caught by Jeff Moore, of Birmingham, that weighed 448 pounds, 4 ounces; a blue angelfish caught by Natalie Parker-Beach, of Fairhope, Ala., at 2 pounds, 10.6 ounces; and a cutlassfish caught by John Robert Frain, of Cumming, Ga., at 3 pounds, 5 ounces. A horse-eye jack caught by Marcus Kennedy, of Mobile, that weighed 22 pounds, 7.2 ounces caught this July is the latest addition to the record book.
“The fact we continue to set state records in many categories, both inshore and offshore, just shows what a good fishery we have in all our waters in Alabama,” said Chris Blankenship, director of the Alabama Marine Resources Division. “We set records on inshore species like jack crevalle and sheepshead. Then we had the offshore fish in the big eye tuna, king mackerel and snowy grouper.”
Blankenship said that several species that made the record books in 2013 and 2014 were deep-water species that indicated somewhat of a shift away from the traditional reef-fishing activities for species like red snapper and triggerfish, both of which have limited seasons now.