Florida Keys Crew Lands 480-Pound Swordfish After Grueling 5-Hour Fight
What started as a routine fishing trip turned into a five-hour war at sea.
When you go fishing in the Florida Keys, you never know when you might find yourself in a five-hour game of tug-of-war with an 11-foot sea monster.
Captain Jose Rodriguez Jr., a Cape Coral native who now runs charters out of Cudjoe Key in the Lower Keys, reeled in a massive 480-pound swordfish last week. What was supposed to be a routine eight-hour trip turned into an all-day war.
"We fought the fish for five hours," Rodriguez told WINK. "We traveled over 14 miles just within the fight."
The swordfish measured 86 inches lower jaw to fork length, with an estimated overall length of roughly 11-and-a-half feet. In other words: an absolute unit.
Rodriguez's group now officially has the "purple fever."
"It’s called purple fever, because they come up all bright purple," he said. "You get the purple fever, and then you’re a sword fisherman forever."
When you're targeting swordfish, getting the fish boatside is just the beginning.
"The most important part of this whole entire fight is sinking a harpoon into the fish," Rodriguez explained. "When we missed the first harpoon shot, that added three more hours to the fight. Now, this thing knows that you have a harpoon, and it ain’t coming nowhere near you."
Three more hours because of one missed shot.
At that point, it becomes as much a mental grind as a physical one.
"In reality, it’s literally agonizing, the time, but it’s a lot of mental toughness and focus," Rodriguez said. "You know you’re battling 8-foot seas out there. Was not calm. You have a 10-year-old on the boat, like you’re trying to make sure everybody’s still comfortable."
Then, they caught a break.
"Finally, this big wave came through and just set the fish perfectly on top of the side of the boat, and we were able to drag them up," he said. "I could, like, look at my mate, and he’s looking at me, and I’m like, 'Oh my God.' And we were both, like, going nuts."
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When they returned to the dock, more than 50 people were waiting to see the behemoth, and the charter family insisted on sharing the fish with the crowd.
Florida Keys Are Built Different
Swordfish are typically targeted at night in deep water, but the Florida Keys remain one of the few places in the world where anglers can chase them both day and night. On this trip, the crew reportedly hooked six swordfish and boated two — absurd numbers by any standard.
For perspective, the current IGFA all-tackle world record swordfish is a 1,182-pound giant caught in Iquique, Chile, in 1953. Florida's state record stands at 612.75 pounds, caught in Key Largo in 1978.
So their five-hour battle won't go down in record books. But it's still a story they'll tell for the rest of their lives.
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