A Florida fisherman changed his luck recently in a big way. Captain Jose Rodriguez Jr. of Cudjoe Key, Florida, takes clients out four to five times a week on a Florida Keys fishing charter to reel in trophy fish. But he’d never come close to catching a monster 500-pound swordfish.
On Feb. 18, Rodriguez, along with a Pennsylvania family, landed a giant 480-pound swordfish, one of the largest of its kind caught in the Keys in recent years.
At first, the Pennsylvania family didn’t realize the importance of what was happening, he said. But the two children aboard were big supporters.
Once the swordfish was caught, there was plenty of work to be done. For starters, there was no simple way to store a fish that huge. “A fish that big actually lies on the back deck with ice bags on top of it with towels,” Rodriguez said. “There’s really no other spot” for it.
Then he and his mate sprayed it with saltwater to bring its core temperature down. When they were ready to filet the fish, they completed the process on the boat. They didn’t have a crane to lift the fish. “Not everyone’s prepared to catch a 500-pound fish,” the captain said.
After Rodriguez’s catch, there were about 50-70 people in his community who turned out to admire the fish. “The whole community was eating swordfish that day,” Rodriguez said, chuckling.
When asked if he felt like a local celebrity, he said, “Almost, yeah. Everybody knows about it. It’s just about being in the right place at the right time, and it ended up happening to me.”
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An Old Man and the Sea kinda fish.
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