Zane Albury hooked a snoy grouper 700 feet below the boat.

The heavy sinker bumped bottom after plunging for over a minute. Zane Albury levered up the drag, took a few turns on the reel, and waited.

It didn’t take long before his medium-duty standup rod bent deeply under pressure. As quickly as the fish hit, it was gone, then right back again for another try. Three swipes at the bait and the circle hook finally found its mark. Now, Albury was bowed up for real.

The fish zipped off a bit of line and then just stopped. We knew what species had that routine in its bag of tricks: It was a grouper, and it had us rocked up. Not a good place to be when you’re separated from your quarry by more than two football fields of line and a strong current is pushing the boat away at over a knot.

We quickly pointed the boat upcurrent and motored over the top of the offending rockpile. Albury worked hard and managed to bust the fish loose from its hole after a few tries. Once free of the bottom, we returned to our northeast drift while Albury methodically pumped and wound to slowly bring his prize to the surface. I thought it would be prohibitively grueling to manually wind a large bottom fish up from a depth of over 700 feet. Albury told me while he was reeling the mystery fish to the surface, “It’s not that bad as long as you take your time and just keep steady pressure on the fish. There’s no rush once the fish is away from the bottom.”

Finally, I could see color coming up. The fish was still far down in the clear blue water. A minute later a hefty snowy grouper popped to the surface. Before it hit the ice we checked its weight on a certified scale: 22 pounds. Albury made a second drop on the same spot and managed another snowy that tipped the scales at 18. This spot had proven potential and we’d be back to try it again.

Albury’s first fish turned out to be just 6 pounds off the current International Game Fish Association (IGFA) all-tackle world record for snowy grouper. Not bad for an experimental outing over unproven bottom. Albury, a Key Largo charter captain, and I have spent many days fishing together over the years—usually on tried-and-true reefs or bluewater edges. Our goal for this trip was to discover new bottom structure that might hold potential world record deepwater species like snowy grouper and queen snapper. We would look for rockpiles, ledges and ridges with our sounder and then sample the fish population by lowering a 3-hook rig with an electric reel. After confirming an area had some quality fish we’d drop the conventional gear or just save the numbers in our chartplotter for future investigation.

Electric reels coupled to stout, bent-butt rods simplify deepwater cranking chores.

To keep physical demands within reason, we limited our search to no deeper than 750 feet of water. We found productive ledges in the 700-foot range, several of which offered record fish potential—or at the least big-time entertainment. On one of our confirmation drops with the electrics we landed what would likely have been an all-tackle world record queen snapper. It weighed over 12 pounds on our certified hand scale. (Fish landed on electric outfits are ineligible for IGFA record certification.)

To find your own deep-drop spots, start your search by looking at a chart of your area to get a general idea of where the 500- to 750-foot depths are located and what kinds of contours they offer. Is it simply a straight dropoff or are there plenty of ups and downs with associated ledges? Areas with radical variations in bottom contour are the most promising. We found just such a stretch southwest of the Islamorada Hump, a prominent (and long fished) seamount in the Straits of Florida. Our chart showed large sections of bottom where the depths were right. Nearby were many hills and valleys. Remember, though, the resolution of a chart is limited and even the best bathymetric charts do not show every nook and cranny capable of holding fish. You’ll need to get on the water and search with a sounder capable of reading deep water (1,000 watts output is a good start) to find the small spots, mark fish and learn the ledges.