03/22/2026
Well the 15th annual Great American Grunt Hunt is in the books!
What a day…the weather, the great fishing, the excitement of the party atmosphere at the weigh-in and of course the ”PRIZE”….the fresh caught Grunts that were fried perfectly by the crew from Snappers, to a mouth watering golden brown!
Hundreds of plates of the fried delight were enjoyed by the enormous crowd that endured the long lines to get a taste of Madeira Beach’s favorite treat!
On ARRR Boat the morning kicked off with a breakfast brunch, complete with a Bloody Mary bar, hosted by Coastal Contractors and the Trash Pirates of Madeira Beach. Mayor Brooks and her husband were in attendance as was Amy Verdensky, owner of Squid Ink and the force behind Old Salts and the ever popular King of the Beach fishing tournaments.
After breakfast was devoured, the crew of ARRR Boat headed out into the Gulf to search for the venerable Acanthuriformes, better known as the White Grunt!
Clearing the jetty at John’s Pass, we were greeted by light winds and a bit of a choppy sea still left from this week’s windy weather.
The crew settled in for a slower than normal ride 19 miles out to our secret grunt spot in 65’ of water. After a 40 minute ride, we arrive in the area of this secret spot, only to find about two dozen boats all ”spot locked” on top of it…Hmmmm, I can keep a secret but apparently the people I tell can’t!
No worries, the bottom screen was lit up with all kinds of color indicating our intended target was lurking in the depths.
We hit the “spot lock“ on the Garmin trolling motor and before I could return to the helm the mayor had already baited her hook and dropped down….Bam! Hooked up, immediately the rest of the crew found themselves in a similar position.
For the next two hours Grunts, porgies, red groupers, gag groupers were all being pulled off the bottom! The groupers were returned to their home while the Grunts and Porgies were placed in the cooler….we had a community to feed after-all!
Thankfully we had Jeff, the mayor’s husband aboard, apparently years ago his mom had taught him her secret method on catching squirrelfish and blowfish because he was a squirrelfish catching machine, definitely was listening to mom during those lessons!
Amy, from Old Salts, was our designated Hogfish collector. She was using a new fishing rig designed by one of the tournament sponsors, Paul’s Balls! Yup, that’s the name of the rig and we sure wore the jokes out on that one all day!
I’m sure when conditions are right, Paul’s Balls, are killer for catching Hogfish, today, Amy could not get it past the grunts that were attacking everything that was dropped down to them!
Mr. Carr, of Coastal Contractors fame, has developed his own secret weapon…he uses a centuries old secret recipe to make frozen chum balls that ignites a furious frenzy of fish on the bottom! This resulted in non stop action for our day of fishing.
We moved around a bit in search of the elusive Hogfish, to no avail, more grunts and groupers…and of course wherever we moved to, Jeff the Squirrelfish catching machine did not disappoint!🤣
Once we had caught every fish in the Gulf, we pulled up rigs and settled in for a beautiful ride back in the now “lake like” conditions of our local waters.
The Mayor had to be first to weigh her biggest Grunt. This was the benchmark for all others to beat, for a chance to win the E-Scooter, graciously donated by Century 21 Beggins.
By 5pm the weigh in line stretched for miles into the parking lot of the Madeira Beach Marina. While the crew from Snappers filleted and cooked the fish, the community enjoyed the party like atmosphere, eating the fresh fried grunts, drinking cold beverages and scarfing up raffle tickets for a chance to win the thousands of dollars in amazing prizes donated by local businesses.
Proceeds raised by the raffles and entry fees are donated to an amazing cause…Beat Childhood Cancer!
As the sun set and the line of anglers all weighed their fish, we gave out all of the raffle prize, awarded the prizes to the tournament winners and then this tired Captain headed home for his appointment with the pillow!
Thank you to all of the anglers, sponsors, local friends and neighbors that joined in this fantastic Madeira Beach traditon…most of all thank you to those great people that work for our city and the huge group of volunteers that all put in an amazing effort to make this one of the best tournament events in our community!
Almost forgot….the winner of this year’s inaugural, “Beat the Mayor” challenge is AEDEN BAUDIN!
AEDEN can you please reach out to me to claim your brand new, MAXSHOT E-Scooter, donated by C21 Beggins!
See you all at next year’s Great American Grunt Hunt!
