Six anglers boarded Captain Joey Maciasz's 44-foot catamaran Timbuktu at Port Fourchon on June 2 for a 36-hour long-range bottom fishing trip. They came home with three fish that are now pending Louisiana state records, and one argument about whether a fourth record — a world one — slipped away on a technicality.
Port Fourchon sits at the southern tip of Louisiana, in the middle of the state's offshore oil and gas industry. The rigs standing in that water double as artificial reefs, and the crew ran well past them before dropping baits.
"We ran out to 300 feet of water, about 180 miles southwest of Fourchon," Maciasz told Outdoor Life. "It's not too long a run when we're cruising in my boat with four Yamaha 350s pushing us along."
Also aboard was Captain Noah Callais, who works alongside Maciasz at Down the Bayou Charters, based at Golden Meadow. The two had been chasing one species in particular for years.
"Noah and I have been trying to catch a record cubera snapper for a long time, and finally everything came together on that trip," Maciasz said.
The fishing was steady through the night — amberjacks released, a 75-pound cubera, more than a dozen queen snapper, assorted grouper, and a 25-pound black trevally that angler Tyler Nelson released because trevally makes poor eating. Maciasz reckons that trevally would itself have been a state record.
Then, around dawn, the crew hit a roughly two-hour window that rewrote the state book. Fishing live hardtail baits on 50-class Shimano Talica reels, 80-pound braid and 250-pound leaders, they boated a 30.5-pound dog snapper for Jason Diver, a 109.5-pound black grouper that beats the standing 105-pound Louisiana mark, and Maciasz's own 131.2-pound cubera snapper.
Accounts differ on who took the grouper: Outdoor Life credits Jake Peterson, while The Lafourche Gazette names Ryan Wheeler. Both outlets agree on the weight, and on the fact that the previous 105-pound record is held by another Down the Bayou captain.
Callais had a sense of what was coming before a line went in the water.
"Before we even caught anything, we knew there was a possibility of us catching a state/world record of some sort," he told the Gazette. "So we made sure one person touched the rod at all times to ensure we would qualify for the records."
That precaution mattered, but it did not cover everything. The Gazette reported the cubera as a pending world record, which would have topped the International Game Fish Association all-tackle Atlantic cubera mark by more than seven pounds. Maciasz has since ruled that out himself.
"All our fish were caught with only one angler on the rod, of course," he told Outdoor Life. "But we fought our fish with the rods in boat rod holders, not in fighting chair rod holders. That's okay for state-record catches, but not for IGFA, which doesn't allow a rod butt to be in a gunnel rod holder."
He says he did not know the rule at the time. The all-tackle record therefore stays with Marion Rose's 124.75-pound cubera, taken on the Garden Banks in June 2007 — a fish that is also Louisiana's state record, and one of only four triple-digit cuberas the state has produced.
Callais is unapologetic about what the summer has shown.
"We have one of, if not the best fishery in the world," he said. "You have no idea what you will catch. The variety and size of fish we have here is like no other. What me and my captain have done together in the three years working together full time is something I'd be willing to argue will never be topped."
The run has not stopped. On July 20, Matt Leerkes of Baton Rouge landed a 94.2-pound, 51-inch cubera on the same boat, in an area of coral bottom on the Garden Banks the group calls Jurassic Park. Weighed on official scales at Hurricane Hole Marina on Grand Isle during a tournament, it slots in at roughly No. 7 all-time in Louisiana, according to records kept by the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association.
Leerkes' account is a useful corrective to the idea that these fish are anything but rare.
"Joey had only caught two cuberas before, and he does this for a living," Leerkes told Louisiana Sportsman. "The only two he caught, he caught the same day."
He is blunt about the odds, too. "You never feel like you've got one until he's in the boat. A big fish is going to break you off 80 percent of the time. And they have hard mouths. The hook fell out when we got him in the boat."
Maciasz's summary of the June trip is shorter. "We'll never replicate it again — catching a state-record 131.2-pound cubera snapper, a 109.5-pound black grouper and a 30.5-pound dog snapper all in the same trip."
