Giant BARBADOS QUEEN SNAPPER and BOTTOM FISH (Catch Clean Cook)

my name is Adam Maro and I've been a fisherman for over 25 years in that time I've seen some pretty incredible things happen on the water oh my God I got it oh my god dad look Dad look did you see that for me fishing is not just a sport it's my purpose so now I've decided that it's time I share my life passion with all of you follow me around the island of Barbados as we catch clean and cook the amazing fish found in these Waters this is the opening Series of on the line today we're going to go try and catch a big Queen Snapper also known as the Onaga in the Pacific off the Northeast point the North Coast of Barbados is the point of the island where the Caribbean Sea meets the raw Atlantic Ocean and when two Water Systems Collide it always makes for very rough water conditions Queens are deep waterfish they live 700 to to 1,000 ft below the surface around the bottom of deep Pinnacles and other structure so to catch them we're using an electric reel and a specially designed deep drop rod with a 4lb weight and Five Hooks baited with Squid here we are at River Bay we're on the East Coast now deep dropping finally get to show you guys we hooked up to a Monster yeah out here with my buddy Logan Humphrey today this is a good fish F 400 ft to go coming up these fish tend to give up about halfway to the surface and we're using mustad circle hooks circle hooks are always good when you're fishing deep because the fish have a much lower probability of getting off once that circle hook pierces their jaw none of the locals here fish with circle hooks they love J Hooks I don't understand it but it works not for me but for them come on baby bounce all the way up there it is coming up floating up yeah baby oh Naga there you go wow from the deep 900 ft beautiful Onaga Queen Snapper what a gorgeous fish not to be confused with the American Red Snapper or anything else these fish are so delicious they live in deep deep water cold slow growing no toxins down there the meat is excellent look at that tail you can see the the sickle coming out on the tail so when they get bigger those sickles actually extend and they look like a like a flame like fire so the locals here call them flame tals see their teeth they have sharp pointy teeth almost like a grouper even though they are a snapper and they feed on squid and any other Bait fish that are down there in the Deep all right we're going to get back down there so we can get another one yep there it is there it [Applause] is Queeny think that one guy bit all the bait I think well they're down there today now that we got some Queens for dinner in the Box we headed to shallower water to try to find some other deep water Snapper species like the eloi and we hooked up almost instantly so we just started dropping off animal flower cave here you can see in the back in about 480 ft looking for these yellow eye we found this little guy they usually live with their friend so there's probably a lot of these little ones down there we're going to try to find a bigger one but these guys are excellent eating they make great Sashimi great sushi and just like any Snapper their dorsal spines are extremely spiky that's their defense mechanism they Spike up when other predators are trying to eat them down there groupers bigger Snappers shark come on Moss get off here see the moss on our line about 7 years ago this Moss showed up now it's all over the ocean East Coast West Coast South North you cannot Escape it and it's affecting the charter boats because they troll for Mahi and Wahoo and Marlin and your baits get stuck in this line everywhere you go there he comes I see color here he comes coming up nice yellow eye nice yellow eye yeah H there's his big brother and now you can see the difference that's a gorgeous fish beautiful white stripes gorgeous yellow eye same teeth like every other Snapper sharp these two fangs at the front here they're indicative of most Snappers you can see that so they Chomp the prey and then the prey gets stuck in the mouth There Is No Escape just like the Moss these get really big too you can get them up to 25 lbs this one's about four so we'll try to go back to get a little bit bigger one so we dropped down again we just lost two huge bites don't know what they were but we came up with this guy this is a Vermilion Snapper similar to a yellow eye but they don't have the yellow tinge as you can see meets a little bit darker and they're more red throughout but still beautiful fish nice tinge oh it's a shark isn't it is it yeah so these little sharks that live near the bottom they're dangerous because of that that Spike will sever an artery that Spike will go through any piece of Flesh it comes in contact with so you got to be really careful when you're handling these guys and they have two of them one on the dorsal and one on the tail their eyes are green they're nocturnal they can see in the dark not much use for us except eating up our bait look at that spine look at that spine right there yeah if that got in you you'd know about it you would not be in denial all right buddy back you go yellow eye it's perfect for sashimi Sushi made with a snapper only minutes out of the ocean is incredibly satisfying and it makes for a great appetizer on just about any occasion but before we head in for the day we stopped at the reef off of animal flower cave to see if we could hook into something surprising so Logan just pulled up this school master Snapper from the vertical jig see those there look at those canines they're like a mini CUA they've got really really long sharp teeth on their upper jaw that go in and attack fish got a good variety of fish today these fish are beautiful they got nice Stripes they got the yellow dorsals kind of like the uh Vermilion and the yellowy Snapper you get bit by one of these you're also going to know about about it so we just got another that is a trophy School Master anywhere in the world you go beautiful white stripes orange scales very tough see if I can get a shot of this guy's canines look at those fangs so we've got our Queen Snapper here so known as the Onaga see what kind of meat this one has on them this electric toy knife is so much easier now that we have a good haul for the day it's time to filet the fish so that the meat can rest a bit before it's prepared almost all snapper have this firm white meat which can be prepared pretty much anywh way you can think of and using the electric Bubba knife we make quick work out of the cash see the difference in meat tonight we're taking our catch to a world-renowned restaurant called the cliff it's been widely praised as one of the best restaurants in the Caribbean not just for theis but because of its reputation for Perfection culinary director Matt Warwick has combined different cooking styles with a constantly changing alicart menu that certainly meet the demands of the clientele found in this establishment and there's giant Tarpon right under your dinner table all right tonight we're at the cliff got my good buddy Chef Matt cooking us everything we got today absolute beauty knows how to make stuff pretty tasty so let's get in there and uh get it started let's go all right let's go come on oh there we go slightly blackened which is a beian thing loads of back and Spacey Seasons the fish as well and then this is the Onaga that we got today yeah really meaty fish dead Fair like super Super Fresh only a few hours old yeah beautiful and then we're just going to do some pan fried normal as it is and then we can do the conest for the guest at the table beautiful plus we're going to do one shed as well which we had before oh nice just done that in a bit of olive oil some seasoning so you can see the different cooking techniques of how it's done beautiful like with meat you've got to rest your meat same with fish you want to try and rest your fish as well for what at least an hour or two so you want to do it like before you before you cook it you want to have it nice and rested even though it's super fresh you can get fish which is actually too fresh too fresh yeah too fresh sometimes yeah so dep obviously depends on the fish you're going to bring that up slowly up in the B and that's going to get the nice coloration on on on the bottom side of the path and then like we said with the other one we've black in so it's basically essentially all we've done is marinate now you work for Gordon Ramsey at one point right yeah so in the last positions with Gordon Ramsey after Sao in London so was there for about a year and a half before that uh working a couple of restaurants throughout the UK uh foring off to gain a mission star which is quite cool nice and then we found ourselves in Sunny bar which is quite you know quite interesting from all the way from Liverpool cool when I'm from to go from there all the way to Barbados in about 10 year career or so wow it's yeah it's fairly incredible we have a great team the Clippers recently reopened uh after a long 10 and Co happened in the middle the owner bought it we Reed it and this is the new clip now how did you become a shf what was the inspiration behind all that so for me I fell in love with eating food first rather than we are yeah rather than cooking food so uh I I just always like good food for me is either good food or bad food it could be any cuisine it's either good or bad you know I'm really fortunate I got into cooking by by mistake and I just as soon as I got the job as an apprentice Chef no experience necessary for I could do that so I did it and from day one of look because every day is completely different it's very it's a very creative process so want is just flip the fish over now she got really nice coloration on the top of it gorgeous those people put lemon on top of the fish but I don't because I don't want the fish to tastes like lemon I want that's the thing and I feel like it Cooks it a little bit too in the acid before you put it in the P that's not what if you want to cover up the flavor then stick a load of lemon on top of it but we just want to again it's trying to treat it as sympathetically as you can and then bring the Flav out to that beautiful fish and then put wow look at that butter look at that butter now we cook with butter wow there's never enough so did you learn anything starting to cook in Barbados that you didn't learn before did any local knowledge seep into you or I think most of it is more about sort of ingredient light and using the resources because we are on our Island and sort of even though we're surrounded by the Sea abundant fresh f is not particularly available in a consistent amount so that's just come off that just going to put olive oil in it maybe finish that in the oven for a couple of minutes that'll take that but all that's out of the pan that's resting that so all of the it's just going yeah it's just going to relax cuz that that heat is UN natural to apply that heat it's just going to relax coming out here this is the best part of our job so we always have this delivered and able to produce this like this it's just incredible so this is one we bagged on so we call it SUV SUV means Under Pressure so we put it in the bag olive oil season it and then we pull all of the air out of it so there that's under pressure now in the back and that's been in a water bath for 54° for about 20 minutes I say and that's just so basically the idea of this is that it's just going to bring that fish up to the same temperature so this is the S so that's just it's really nice and soft so all are going to do is to finish that off going to put more olive oil on it and put it under the grill and then I'll just bring it up to the right temperature you're look at 64 65° so this is the finished product from mat in the kitchen this is the black and donaga Snapper look when I cut into that look at this look at how flaky white that meat is that is exactly what you want your fish to look like doesn't look like that you've overcooked it or done something seriously wrong oh my God that is so good