A Texas man reeled in the third largest grouper ever caught on a hand crack about 35 miles off the coast of Louisiana, according to Louisiana records.
Cullen Green, 28, caught the 6-foot, 6-inch, 297-pound Warsaw Grouper in around 500 feet of water, some 35 miles away from land and next to an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, KETKNBC.com reported.
In May, after a 30-minute fight with the large fish, it was finally caught using small tuna as bait.
Greer, fishing near an oil rig, was on an overnight fishing trip out of Louisiana with business colleagues when he initially believed to have been snagged early Saturday morning, Fox News reported.
"I told the captain, "I think I'm stuck," he said. "He put a couple of cranks on it and said, 'Yeah, that's a fish."
The fish gave him a strong fight, but eventually ballooned and its massive dark body floated to the surface.
"It was unbelievable," he said. "Even though we were going for grouper, we had no idea what it was."
Considered to be one of the largest groupers ever caught, a 359.1-pound grouper was recorded as being caught back in 2008, according to the report.
Although the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association needs to verify Greer's catch, it would reportedly be the fifth-largest ever brought back to a Louisiana port.
The Warsaw Grouper is commonly found on the Gulf's rocky floor.
"The crew used an external freezer once they hauled the fish onto the deck and headed back to the Louisiana dock. Greer said the fish had more meat on it than he could ever pack onto the plane home," according to Fox News. "So he distributed some of the meat to boat hands and the boat's captain."
"I'm getting married in a few weeks and I told my fiancée that we should use some of the meat at our ceremony," he said. "That didn't go over so well."
