Giant MYSTIC GROUPER In THE CAYMAN ISLANDS (Catch/Clean/Cuisine)

the most useless invention and I fall for it every time I buy a new one every trip [Music] on this series of on the line with Adam marito Adam's in a Caribbean hotspot famous for his legendary 7mile Beach scuba diving pristine water and no taxes a Cayman Islands teaming with Wahoo tuna Snapper grouper and endless inore species this place truly is a worldclass Anglers Paradise the Cayman are made up of three main islands Grand Cayman Little Cayman and Cayman Brock and each island here has something special to offer today Adams fishing in Grand Cayman with local Legend Dominique Martin Mays and his first mate drippy targeting Deepwater grouper and Snapper the wind forecast for the week was horribly wrong and Adam even delayed the trip until the weather report said the wind was dying but when they landed it picked up even worse but that didn't stop the boys from going out on the quest to Huck and land the rare and Elusive Mystic grouper commonly found in over 12200 ft of water these Giants of the deep are hard to find and even harder to catch so to start the day the boys head out trolling to get some black finin tuna he uses their deep drop bait and to see if any Wahoo are feeding around the surface first of the day we've come up uh the Northwest point of the island so this is all West Bay up here tur Farm maaba so we're going to set out some tuna feathers here try to catch some Bonitas skip Jacks black fin tuna that's what we're going to be using for bait for deep dropping for the groupers and the Snappers uh hopefully in the next hour or so if we can quickly get them in then we have a good session uh think also going to slack out some wire lines in the back here monel stainless still wire double hook rigs with balaho with Islander L over the top targeting waho some on trolling leads some not on trolling leads so not targeting Wahoos directly trying to get bait for the Snappers but we're not going to say now but we're not going to turn down we're not going to say so you can see 7 Mile Beach right here our hotel is on that strip where all the highrises are we're coming around to the south point of the island now it's a lot calmer than where we launched from the wind's coming from the north so now we're going to get some shelter around this point yeah woo yeah boy look at the headshakes look at the headshakes oh yeah there we go we got to keep the line really tight cuz Wahoo have super super hard head shakes coming up it right there there we're going to see him any second he's coming through the water come left come left all right take a step back take a step back all right s mile wo all right guys watch [Music] yourselves what a nice fish beautiful walk gorgeous hold them up beautiful fish let me uh un clip this for you real quick watch yourself on them teeth yeah yeah I learned a month ago and he lost my toe so what a gorgeous fish to start the day beautiful fish Seven Mile Wahoo baby that's why we fish in the Cayman Islands 200 y from Shore beautiful Woos from a let me hold a up profile Here We Go sir beautiful fish Adam gorgeous beautiful fish man beautiful 25 lb wahooo beautiful fish gorgeous good start to the morning all right just lay him straight down in there so just to give you guys an idea of how quickly it gets deep here from land to the water that boat is in 60 ft of water there that's the kitty wake wreck it's a really popular dive spot here in Grand Cayman we're about I don't know 200 yd away from it and we're in 850 ft right here so I can almost cast a 200 g jig to 60 ft of water from here we're in the abyss so these are for top water so if we see the Tunas come up or mahes or anything up on the surface amongst the birds we'll actually go up we'll stop the boat we'll cast those into it fast retrieve and hopefully we get that to water bite 80 lb yellow fin on a spinning reel cancel your gym [Music] membership this LP is an extremely sturdy reliable deep drop reel and rig this is what a lot of guys use for uh sword fish commercially in Florida but it works great for deep dropping pretty much anywhere in the world so we got a 250 lb monol and a [ __ ] low Dominic how much uh how much braid do we have on here uh about 3 and half th000 yard 35,000 yards of braid so we're going to send some of the uh black fin and Squid down to the bottom to see if we can get a black satin that's right yeah so we're going to be Dr deep dropping between 600 and about 12200 ft uh using a 5 six lb syn on the back a rig with eight hooks or with individual swivels double chicken rig yeah exactly double chicken so eight hooks going down you know give us more chance there's a couple bigger hooks on the bottom where we're going to put half a black fin head or big strips of black fin that's going to be for more your grou of baits and then we're going to do a mixture of black fin and Squid as well we're just going to keep an eye out a lot of tuners around so we might halfway through end up picking up and running out to some tuners so cuz those big Mystic grouper they'll inhale one of those black fin heads they'll swallow it and then that circle hook circle hook as soon as they take it on the rig it'll set set the hook itself in the corner of the mouth and uh really hard for it to get off you see our rig here this is called a chicken rig or a donkey rig depending on what part of the world you're in Dominic uh doubled up he put eight hooks instead of four so we got a double chicken rig good big go home nice circle hooks you always want to have a lot of hooks when you're fishing deep water because the bake gets quick gets picked out pretty quickly and if you lose one bait we got seven more and it's a long way to go up and down just for one hook so same setup as the port side of the boat this one's got blue braid instead of orange so the other one tomato tomato potato yeah the other one's got a wind on too um that's primarily for sword fishing so with the braid you're going to get a little more responsiveness through the rod tip so prer to deep drop with a straight braid this's full full uh electric no manual crank yeah gorgeous done a little mix here a little bit of black fin little bit of squid all right let's do it we're just over a third of a mile offshore and we're in over 1,000 ft of water the drop offs around came in are crazy it's not as it's not as slow slow sloping descent it's an instant drop off into trenches kind of like it so here we go Revolutions in feet if it's one for one we're at almost 830 ft there we are set the drag at the number two Mark bring it up off bottom a little bit now watch the rod tip it's the wmd is the medium strength one so they use up in Florida for for the sword fishing a little bit more backbone on it great for deep dropping because when you do get those groupers and stuff like that you have just have a little bit more Backbone in say than the softer sword Rod that over here which is designed for for low current down here up in Florida they're dropping four five six knots of current when they're sword fishing down here we're less than a knot and a half so much smaller weight so we don't need such stiff rods so we get much better bite indication deep dropping is very effective because you have a big weight actually at the bottom of your line and all the hooks are above it and on the main line we have leaders little leaders placed at different locations on it with circle hooks so when a fish takes the bait and bites and moves away it actually causes tension when it pulls away from the main line and it catches on the 6 pound weight at the bottom and that tension hooks the circle hook into their mouth and they can't get away so that big weight actually helps us set the hook it's what causes the tension before we actually start to retrieve the line it's not the same as a j- hook where you have to actually give it some pressure to set so we just got stuck in a rock pile and we gave it a bunch of slack and a nice fish came and picked a hook up and unhooked it for us [Music] yes about 120 ft from the surface this fish isn't huge but still feels a little decent oh something on the bottom too just pick it up the the towards me a poy and a papy hey [Music] lman nice papy what a gorgeous looking fish look at that pinkish blue tinge deep water SN Napper species the biggest one I've seen is about 10 lb these they get they get decent this one's going to be a nice little eater gorgeous wenchman and we got this little guy nice little Queen Snapper juvenile I would release this guy but it's going to be hard to cuz he came up from so deep so he's going in the uh in the pan tonight this is about an eighth of the size of the ones we get in Barbados okay we just pushed off into about 12200 ft and we got something Giant on the line yeah I'm an island boy and I look at that he's stolen us out stolen us out on the lp that's a good fish that could be our grouper guys that could be our grouper look at this look at in the look at in the waves bouncing waves the bend in that Raw and the stalling of the spool doesn't have a lot of head shakes like a queen Snapper so it's making me more confident that it's a grouper oh man definitely don't want to put too much pressure on and have it snap off we run light braid down here so we're only running 50 lb braid on our deep dropping rigs that's so we have a smaller diameter so we can keep the scope out of the line so we can stay more up and down and it less resistance to make the bait and everything scope out primarily we use it for sword fishing so so we want to keep that bait as deep as we can without all the scope so we got to be a little careful on the drag but this fish is coming up roer are more big dead weight fish than they are uh feisty like a snapper who usually give a lot of head shakes grouper do give head shakes too but it's more like boom boom boom big slow and heavy Queen Snapper and other Snappers are the tip goes like a batt Out of Hell groupers is more of a steady slow dead weight retrieve 600 ft to go yeah yeah is a very grou very groupes bite so Bing across that's what he is but beautiful headshakes coming through an amberjack fits an amberjack I'm flying home how you laugh man drippy drippy no real bad man real bad man real bad man I don't want to wear this too much but my pasty ass gets burned really quick so then I'm going to get yelled at by my mother by my wife probably people I don't even know are yelling at me that's fine yes he is there he is group of real Batman drippy yeah look at that Mystic grouper baby look at that Circle hook right in the corner the eight banded grouper yeah come on that's a great groupa I felt that one go slack and I knew something just took the weight off beautiful R real Batman beautiful roua wow guys that's a beautiful look at this guys this is a gorgeous Mystic grer oh my God yeah baby Cayman Island s Mile Beach Mystic grouper wow they also call these the eight banded grouper in the South Pacific cuz they've got eight Stripes that go down their side wow look at the mouth on this thing look at that designed to just completely engulf prey as soon as it gets in it's not getting out wow let me see look at the dorsal spines on it they are so sharp Dom you want to show us the dorsal spines here come around and these spines up on a rich here extremely sharp here you see the bone in the middle here yeah they go in wedge themselves amongst the rock anything come in you do not want to be putting your hands in here full of bacteria go right through your glove through your hand what a fish you can see the pressure change you can actually see what he's been eating that's actually his stomach coming up from the pressure change coming up and that's what caused him to float you see his big belly here all puffed up look at this guys probably around the 30 B 30 yeah that's a 30 pounder for sure oh what a fish oh man remember the first rule of fishing the uglier they are the better they taste let's see if we can show the teeth here look at these canines not as long as a snapper wow look at this this is all it's distended not as long as a snapper but still designed to trap prey and crush more than pierce the bottom row of teeth there wow he's got what three or four rows of teeth there wow what a gorgeous fish it's one of the best eating fish in saltwater I like the snowy grouper personally but oh my God yeah for a while down here now huh seriously me and Dom have been trying to get this for what 2 three years now two years now probably probably 10 12 trips out looking for these groupers and we've had Tunas Wahoos Marlin everything else but finally got into into that grouper that big tail you can really feel it when it's powering down there that's what gives you that typical Thum thumb of the groupers wow okay let's get this guy in the ice brine oh yeah oh what a gorgeous fish what a fish one more time look at that profile wow guys that's going to be awesome into the ice brght no wow see that big powerful tail put him in there next to that wall through all right right now we're pulling up to the 7 Mile Beach strip again we were fishing only about a third of the mile off the beach cuz the water is so deep so fast here you can see it's so teal blue super shallow this is the big strip of Grand Cayman [Music] [Music] here's the absolute Beast we got from earlier oh yeah what a fish iced it down it's been chilling for about 3 hours he's going to be nice and cold time to filet we bought the cord Bubba electric knife instead of the cordless me and all my genius before we came here so we plugged it into this guy's Outlet so what we're going to do is come right behind the Gill plate pack fin cut up into the [Music] [Applause] head so we get to the backbone wow then we're going to turn our knife to make our lateral cut down the backbone [Music] always angled down so we don't miss any meat do not go through the backbone like always come on baby these fish have such thick torsal spines and such a thick hide that trying to get through it there we go now she's moving like butter once you do get through it you're [Music] okay oh my goodness that is an absolute beautiful piece of Mystic grouper look at that fet it's 2 in thick snow white meat absolute beautiful piece of Mystic GR wow right up behind the Gill plate down to the backbone this knife is cutting through the hide really well you wouldn't be able to do it this efficiently with a manual held one [Applause] [Applause] nice you all the [Applause] [Applause] work unbelievable look at that these ribs are so [Music] big you could probably smoke them we're not going to do that today but and just scoop them out [Music] oh my God look at that guys SP too yeah [Music] EG h rad me baby gorgeous almost like the cheek meat we're going to get going to be like two nice [Music] scallops now look at that that is like a scallop here's the Head meat and there's the cheek beat now we're going to switch to the 7 in [Music] [Applause] [Music] Queen Snapper get money and queen Snapper tonight the boys are taking the catch to a new restaurant on Grand C called Nova a beachfront gem nestled on the NorthShore of West Bay a fusion of Mediterranean and Japanese Cuisine Nova is a perfect blend of luxury Beach Club and fine dining this is the ideal spot to bring fresh fish for a unique culinary experience with Incredible shfs t tonight we're at Nova it's a brand new beach club at the most westerly point of the island it's got kind of a Nicki Beach vibe to it it actually looks pretty cool it's got a beautiful view of the uh ocean out here so we're going to cook up that big Mystic grouper and those other small Snappers we got today authentic K Manan style it's going to be awesome [Music] [Music] look at the size of those cheeks they're like scallops wow unbelievable I mean you look at this this chunk of grouper that's 5 lb of grouper flesh right there that's gr for [Music] meat so we're seasoning it now with local blacken seasoning olive oil what would you say the the favorite Spice in Cayman is what do people like to use here in my restaurant they like tongar Rashi the spice spicy tarashi that will I use in the fried tempura I will marinate and then I will friy sweet oh it smells so good look what he's got going back [Music] [Music] here I'm me [Music] face lemon squeeze up the lemon this one we will just P here only P here yeah kind of like scallops right yeah [Music] [Applause] yeah barely any time splp flip you don't want to overcook grer or any white fish ever [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] this is going to sizzle oh yeah piping hot Skillet fresh mytic [Music] little flour yeah little flour and what is that this is a tempura batter tempura batter with a little con starch in this one to get a crispiness lovely [Music] [Music] you need to shake it otherwise stick in the water don't STI so we've got our Wahoo sliced in dice I always find this aichi on this island the pieces are thick where like where I come from Barbados they're all they're all really small fine pieces These are nice like thick chunks solid and uh there we have our sauce this uh red pepper pul uh red pepper um and red onion and tomato with some lime juice salt pepper wow that so good [Music] what is this this is s for the grilled fish that we give our local cat fish so what's in this Tomatoes Olive tomato Olive garlic basil and sake the wine from Japan [Music] keeper [Music] dressing turn off the light on the [Music] tole lemon [Music] potatoes nice [Music] it Mystic grer tempura wow look how nice that batter fry [Music] up wah this is Wahu saiche almost looks like a Sriracha you C A yeah nice one that is so good that red sauce is amazing there's the Mystic grouper tempura see what it looks like inside look at that and they put that special Japanese spice on it too tartar sauce oh my God see this oh my here let me cut into this a little better Mystic grouper let's see how Mystic are you I got you my with the Mediterranean um Olive and tomato salsa not a bad first day it looks incredible