Swordfish Adventure Off Orange Beach

It all started as a later thought to target swordfish when the 60-foot Hatteras, named Trade Desk, left Orange Beach. The plan was for a three-day catch-and-release fishing trip.

Robert Fritze, along with his father Ron and four friends—Harold Wells, Jamie Boyd, Wes Hagler, and Robert Parks—had mapped out their journey in advance. Their main goal? To find Merlin and Sailfish.

“We spotted spots where others were reeling in blues, whites, and sails,” said Fritze, who hails from Birmingham. “We headed southwest, contemplating going deep. But that wasn’t our primary aim. So we decided to keep moving.”

They found themselves near a 4,500-foot water delta with an oil and gas platform, only to encounter an unproductive RIP—where two currents met and changed color. So they pushed further south, catching some dolphins, wahoo, and barracudas. They were pursuing a barracuda when a Blue Merlin returned to their boat, but it slipped away.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, they shifted their focus to jigging for tuna. They stored a few black fins in a tube for bait the following morning.

Since the offshore boats lacked professional crews, Fritz and his team took turns catching some sleep. “I did my first shift,” Robert recalled. “My dad relieved me. I set him up with swordfish bait, a standard nighttime rig of squid and a light.”

The bait was generously soaked before the large swordfish took the squid.

“I grabbed the rod and settled into the chair,” Robert described. “It was about 300 feet down when he bit. It took a good 30 minutes before I finally saw the fish. It was on the edge of the spreader. At the time, the bite didn’t feel extraordinary. I could feel the weight, but it wasn’t, you know, super thrilling.”

“Then he came back, and I spotted the bill breaching the water, and it just kept coming. He raised his head but didn’t fully jump. We caught a decent view of him.”

The fish dove and then surfaced twice more before he squealed.

“He fought hard, stripping line steadily,” Fritze remarked. “The reel made those tick-tick-tick sounds as he pulled away, heading the other direction and never slowing down.”

The line gradually came off the reel, indicating that the fish had descended to around 800 feet, marked by the braided line’s depth markers.

“Eventually, he stopped, and I started regaining some ground,” Fritze mentioned. “At first, I just wanted to turn the handle one full revolution. Then it became two or three revolutions as he drew closer to the boat.”

His friends provided plenty of playful jabs during the battle, as good friends often do.

“They were encouraging me, offering unsolicited advice,” he chuckled. “My buddy was filming and chiming in about how it was a four-hour fight. They even took the fans out of the engine compartment to keep me cool.”

Fritze noted he usually brings big fish bags on these offshore trips but left them behind this time, thinking the tuna would take longer to bite. Wells, who had a swordfish stick handy, even asked if he should toss a bag aboard.

“I said no,” Fritze recalled. “If I leave it behind, I’ll probably hook something good.”

The situation morphed into a flurry of chaos when the massive swordfish finally relented after a lengthy 4.5-hour struggle.

“We didn’t have a flying gaff, and we were ill-prepared for a fish of that size,” Fritze stated. “We had just enough time to tie some ropes to one of the gaffs. But we weren’t set up for landing such a huge catch. He came within 50 feet of the port.”

With the gaff ready, the crew braced themselves to secure the fish.

“I fell right out of my chair,” Fritze recounted. “I hadn’t realized how tired my legs were. Everyone scrambled down, and Dad opened the door to grab him. He didn’t even have a big rope onboard; he used the rod’s chains to wrap around the tail and tried to pull him in.”

“Finally, we managed to get him aboard, and we were amazed we actually pulled it off.”

Next came the reality of what to do now, especially since they had no large fish bags for the swordfish.

“We concluded we had no choice but to head back and clean up,” Fritze shared. “We hadn’t planned on keeping it. We couldn’t even hardly see it. The return trip was supposed to take four hours, but a storm stood between us and Orange Beach.”

As word spread about their impressive catch, spectators gathered at the Orange Beach Marina to witness the fish being unloaded and weighed.

Fritze admitted that no one anticipated their fish would weigh as much as it did. Wells speculated it could even break the state record of 448 pounds set in 2006.

“Breaking state records wasn’t on my mind at all,” he added. “I was just glad to be measuring something so sizable with my dad and friends.”

When Dockmaster Jimmy Beason announced the weight was “550.3 pounds,” the fish drew quite a crowd and excitement at the marina.

“I remember the fight, but looking back, it feels a bit hazy,” Fritze reflected. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have done this.’ The whole experience was kind of surreal.”

After their celebration, they figured it would be best to store the fish for inspection by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources as part of the record application process. Fortunately, J&M Tackle had ample freezing space for the massive swordfish.

Instead of resting on their laurels, the anglers refueled and headed back out. They managed to catch a barrelfish, a tilefish, and six more dolphins.

“Then the reel went off, and Jamie hopped in the chair to catch the first sailfish,” Fritze recounted. “That was the cherry on top of the day. Eventually someone chimed in, ‘We need to get home now.’

As for the state-record swordfish, Fritze never imagined he’d spend 4.5 hours in a combat chair.

“It was a fish of a lifetime,” he said. “And it made so much sense to share that with my dad. He bought his first saltwater boat when I was five. We’ve never just sat on the beach; all we did was fish.”

Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources