BY CHRIS WHEATON
Special to Western Outdoor News
LORETO, Mex.— Star-studded grouper (aka baqueta) have been a target for me for a while now. I broke the world record twice previously, it has been broken twice since then and currently my friend William has the record with a 37-pound, 14-ounce. fish. I have been trying to get the record back for a while now and after several attempts, it looks like I may have succeeded with a fish that weighed in at 42 pounds,15 ounces. back on land on a certified scale.
In March I went to Gonzaga to try and get it back. On this trip, I tried to get it in Bahia De Los Angeles with Juan Cook but we were out on the quarter moon and the current was so strong we couldn’t get the jigs to the bottom while fishing 700 to 850 feet deep. I let Nathan Burbey know I was driving down passed him at the Bay of Concepción on the way to Loreto if he needed anything, and he told me that he just got in some new 500-gram knife jigs to add to his lineup of MILF jigs that he sells in Baja and on Amazon. He told me to stop by and pick one up to test it out for him. I actually passed his new place and had to turn around and go back, but it was well worth it.
On Wednesday, the plan was to try some deep spots for baqueta on the way back from fishing, but a hook in my finger and melting ice in the fish hold said otherwise. Thursday morning, Captain Julio Martinez asked me what I wanted that day. I told him “a baqueta over 40 pounds and a roosterfish over 56 inches.”
He ran us out to a spot and I tied on the new MILF jig. On just the second drop, I pulled up this monster from the deep that beat the current record by a little over 5 pounds. I have submitted this as a new record for this species, and if approved that will be number 30 for me. I have seen and heard of people catching bigger ones, so I know this can be beaten but, at least for now I got one big enough.
