MASSIVE Queen Snappers and a Giant Hammerhead

This morning we're here in Isla Morada with my buddy Dave from Munsters Fishing and we're gonna try to catch some giant queen snappers. This is what we're using for bait for these queen snappers. Just a piece of squid, circle hook, some 80 pound leader. That's all it is guys. We got one, two, three, four baits on here. You can see them right here and then we got a five pound piece of lead right there. Just let it fly pretty much. See ya. Yeah. As soon as you see that, hit it wide open. Right here? Yeah. Full on, full set. When you get a good bite, go wide open. Once you get them on then slow it down just a little bit. Okay. As long as it's hitting the bottom is all that matters. There he is. Oh, be ready. There he is. Get him. We got him right? Yeah. Keep going, keep going wide open for a minute. Here we go. We got one. We got one. Oh yeah, that's a big one. It's a big one dude. Oh my gosh. The reel's stalling out. Dude, he's stalling the reel out man. It's a big one. You fought hard on there. Oh, there it is. Stalling the reel out. It came on. No it didn't. 700 more feet to go. Think it's a queen? I don't know. You don't know? Hard to tell yet. Oh, oh, hello. Are there sharks here? Oh yeah. I don't even say that word. Oh, whoops. 100 meters. Here we go. Guys, we got a real fish on here. This is a good one. Trying to float. It might be a big grouper. 20. Scoping up. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5. Start Giant queen. Oh my gosh. Look at the size of that one. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. That is as big as they get right there. Look at the size of that queen snapper. Oh my gosh. What a beast. Dude, that is a freaking monster. Total monster. It's got to be what, 25 pounds? Oh yeah, 25, 27 easy. Look at the size of its eye, guys. Come check this thing out. Look at the size of that thing's eyeball. Oh my gosh. What a beast. A monster for sure. Nice job, man. Dave thinks if this was caught on a regular rod and reel, non-electric, it would be a world record. We're going to measure it right now. Let's see. Yeah, the world record's 27 pounds. If you were to hand crank this fish, and I know he's probably over 27 pounds. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He's 46, 46 inches. So yeah, this would definitely be a world record. Oh yeah. He's 27 to 30 pounds. Yeah. Our biggest problem down here though is when they are biting, a lot of people abuse this fishery. We try to not ever even keep more than four or five at the most, even when they're biting, and that'll keep the stock here. Years ago, we overfished them. It took 10 years before you could even catch the queens again. So hopefully anyone that ever sees this and hears this, if you ever get into a good bite of queens, respect your queens. Catch four or five, let them go from after that, leave them alone. I think we can say that about every fishery. Just because the limit is what it is, doesn't mean you need to keep that much. Exactly. Keep what you need. My rule is, I don't like freezing fish really. I like eating what's fresh. So eat what you can fresh and release the rest. Yep. And what's crazy in the Keys, you can't even keep a snowy or a blue line tile, but the limits tend per person with queens, which is way too many. And we'll never catch that many in a day, but what a fishery, guys. What a beautiful fish. What a pig. How old do you think he is? Oh, he's probably at least 10 years old. Really? See, that's the first fish of the day. It's already an amazing day. We just started. Let's catch another one. All right. So what are you doing here, Dave? We're just going to go one time right through the tail. Dave, what's your story? How'd you become a guy down here? Well, I was guiding. I'm actually from Tallahassee, Florida, born and raised. And then my early 20s, I started guiding in Alaska. And I did that for a few years. And then I guided a captain out of Bud Mary's Marina. And he gave me a job down in the Keys about 30 years ago. I've been down here ever since. Here we go. Give me another giant. Oh my gosh, dude, he's really strong. This is a really good fish, guys. Look at this reel. It's stalling out. Look at this. Oh, he's pulling line. He's pulling line. Oh my gosh, he's pulling line. This is a monster. This is a real deal, guys. Look at this reel. Look, he's pulling line. He's pulling line. Look at that reel. It's just stalling out. That first 50 meters, he fought super hard. This could be another big queen. That'd be incredible. Queens fight hard all the way to the surf. All right, 100. 60 meters. You think it's a queen? I'm fighting like one. It could be bigger than the other one. Nine, eight. There he is. Big queen. Big queen? It is a big queen. Another big queen. Oh my gosh, it's another monster. Dude, it's another giant. Oh my gosh. Beautiful. Grab him right in the mouth. Beautiful. Look at that. Wow. Man, what a queen. Another beautiful queen snapper. Another monster. Nice. Oh my gosh. Beautiful fish. This is the one we just caught. This is the one we caught earlier. This one's definitely bigger, but these are absolute totes monsters, dude. Yeah. Dinosaurs, dude. Peace. In the box, Dave. Let's get another one. Nice. This is going to be drop number three. Ready? Yeah. There we go. Drop number three. We caught those two queen snappers back to back. We did a few more jerks after that and no bites, so we're going to change things up right now. We've got a 50 wide here. We're going to put a grunt on it, see if we get a big old amberjack. Through the bottom jaw, up to the top jaw. Just start letting it down. Let me pull the boat up a little bit. It's a long way down. Oh yeah. Reel on it. Start reeling on it. You think he's there? You got something. Yep, there we go. Oh yeah, you got a fish. Oh yeah, you got a monster. Here we go. Don't put too tight a heat on him. He ate it on the way up. Fishing the Black Tip H30 to 50 pound class rod. This thing feels awesome. I'm going to pull fine. Let's go. Come on. They must have been sitting up mid-water column. There's the weight. Here, let me get the lid. There he is down there. Come on. What you got? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, nice. 25 to 30 pounder. Oh yeah, almost 40. Oh yeah. Nice fish. It's a nice fish right there. A little bigger than the queen snapper. These things fight so hard. Oh my gosh, they fight incredibly hard. When the queens are as big as an amberjack, that's when you know. This is a rod that I designed and what we did is we wrapped the whole blank with carbon fiber and that's when you saw like, here's a 30 to 50. Normally using a heavier rod for amberjacks, you see how well it held up. Oh yeah. It's really nice. I actually have to get you some of these to test out. No, no, you got it. You got it. It's yours. It's yours. Tuna. Oh yeah. Tuna on. So Dave just dropped my jigging rod down and he's tight. I think it's a tuna. Tuna, man. It might be a 15 pounder. Everything just changed. It's sunny out now. Oh, there he is. There he is. There he is. He fought hard for his size. Wow. A little seven pounder. Oh, he's like a 20 pounder. I love their big pectoral fins. Look at that. It's like a little airplane. Dropping down. Somebody's got it. Huh? Let him eat it. Oh, he's eating it again? Yeah. Three, two. Oh, you got a grown one. He just realized he's hooked. Yeah, I think so. This was the little tuna that I caught on the jig. We dropped him down. A little bigger than the last one. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it. I think I see it. I think so. Hold on. Yep. There's the lead. There's the lead. Yep. Here comes the lead. Man, he's kicked my butt. He's only- Nice. It's a nice amberjack. Wow. Amberjack. Over 30 pounds for sure. Can't keep him though. We can only keep one. So we're going to let him go and he's ready. Here we go. Ready, buddy? You ready to go? All right. See you. Hey, Josh, let's go do something else. We'll go and look for some cobia. The queen snapper, the deep drop bite slowed down. There's not much current right now. So we're going to go and see if we can find a ray with a bunch of cobia on it. Dude, I love cobia. I'm all about it. Let's go. Cool. Let's do it. Hey, there's a really big triple tail back here. Here we go. Giant triple tail. Oh, yeah. He's a beauty. He's big. He's big. He's big. Biggest one I've seen this year. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. He's excited. Big triple tail. Just tying a hook on right now. We'll put a live bait at him. You ever had him eat a grunt? Oh, they'll smoke it. Oh, nice. We catch them on finger mullets. Nice. Here we go. It's game on now. There you go. He's got it. He's got it. He's got it. Let him eat it. Let him choke on it. Let him eat it. Got him. Got him. We got him. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Monster. Big fish, dude. Oh, he's big. He's big. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a nice one, dude. Pulling. There he goes. Come on. Or I could dip net him with a net. Yeah, you might want to do that. Then you don't waste any meat. Yeah. I would hit him with that net. Yeah. Beautiful. We got him. Nice. Look at that, dude. That's a really nice triple tail for the keys right there. Probably like six, seven pounds. Oh, yeah. Nice fish. It's a nice triple tail, but that thing is ridiculous. It's a really nice box. We got two big queens in there. We got a blackfin. We got an amberjack. We got triple tail. A lot of good fish in there. Oh, yeah. Okay. I just found a giant hammerhead. I just found a giant hammerhead on the drone. He's swimming. Oh, good. He's coming right at us. Yeah, right there. Stop, stop, stop. Oh, he's right here. Oh, he's huge. Dude, he's like 14 foot. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. And wow. He doesn't want nothing to do with it. Totally turned it down. Are you kidding me? We tried catching him. We tried everything. We tried like seven times. We tried using tuna for bait. We tried using amberjack for bait. We positioned the baits right in front of him, and he wanted nothing to do with it, which is really, really sad. We're going to put the drone up one more time, do a last minute search around here, then we're going to head back to the dock. What a day, dude. Good day. Biggest queen you said you caught in two years? Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. Biggest one I've ever seen in my life. I didn't know they got that big. When I saw it come up, I was like, what the heck is that? It was so big and fought so hard, I wasn't even sure it was a queen. And that thing's pushing 30 pounds easily. We got to weigh it. We have to weigh it. I got to scale my car. We're going to weigh this fish, see if we crack 30 pounds, guys. If you want to go and have an epic day of fishing, this guy right here in the Keys, this is the man right here, Dave Munster Fishing. Check him out. Link in the description. His Instagram link is also in the description. Go and follow him on Instagram right now and check out the awesome fish he catches. And also, guys, make sure you check out our new Blacktip H products on blacktiph.com. The link is also in the description. Thanks for watching, guys. If you want to see our most recent video, click right here. If you want to subscribe, click right here. And we'll see you next time.