This massive 347 pound Warsaw Grouper was landed by angler Anthony Panipinto while fishing with Capt. Paul Christie and team Jumbo Shrimp during the 2016 Crosthwait Fishing Tournament. It has been incorrectly identified all over the internet as a goliath grouper, including several reputable news sources. It is 100% a warsaw grouper.
Christie says the fish was caught in 600-feet of water fishing on a shipwreck.
“That fish when it got on, I was convinced he was hooked on the bottom. Brother in law was swearing it was a fish. We’re helping, trying to get the fish to move up and it’s not really doing anything. Line was slowing coming in, and that’s when I realized it was a fish. I think it took it a little for the fish to realize it was hooked. We were just hoping the hook and line wouldn’;t break. We’ve caught a lot of goliaths and we’ve never caught a goliath that big.”
The fight took 30-minutes. When it came up to the surface, the team wasn’t able to pull it into the boat easily, and Christie feared a shark may come up and attempt to eat it.
The team tied ropes over their 39’ Contender’s TTop, making a pulley system to pull it in. At the weigh-in a crane was needed to pull it out of the boat.
Since then this video taken by Zacko Gerzeny has gone viral across Facebook, amassing over 6,000,000 views in a few days on many channels. The world record warsaw grouper is 436-pounds 12-ounces.
Warsaw grouper are legal to catch and keep, unlike the similar goliath grouper.
