Some fish stories are about the fish. This one is about a friendship. To understand what happened on Saturday, May 9th, off the coast of Quepos, Costa Rica, you first need to know about Ward Michaels. Ward is one of my very best friends in life, a man of extraordinary character, honesty, and an almost spiritual love of the snook. He owns the top snook fishing camp in the United States, a livelihood and a passion built over more than 30 years.
It was Ward who brought me to his camp in Chokoloskee, Florida in the late 1990s, where I caught my very first snook. And it was Ward who brought me to Costa Rica for the first time in March of 2000, to chase the big Pacific black snook in these same waters where I now live.
In 2014, Ward Michaels stood right here at Marina Pez Vela in Quepos and weighed in a 59 lb 8 oz Pacific black snook — the IGFA all-tackle world record. I was fortunate to be here that week. I watched it happen. We are, as I always say, truly tied at the hip. Which is why Saturday, May 9th, 2026, was simultaneously the greatest and most difficult day of my fishing life.
The morning gave little away. There wasn’t a single sardine school breaking the surface all day, yet the fish-finder told a different story — choked wall-to-wall with thousands of sardines sitting between 15 and 35 feet down, and amid those schools, the unmistakable marks of large fish feeding at will. We were fishing live six-inch sardines trolled behind the boat with Captain Rudy, and with that much bait in the water, it was something close to a miracle that any fish chose mine.
The bite was nothing like you’d expect from a fish of this size. No explosion, no violent strike, just a subtle, slow swim-away. I let her run with the sardine for about eight seconds, engaged the reel, made two turns, and felt the weight of something I had never felt before. What followed was 25 minutes that felt like two hours.
She never surfaced. Not once during the entire fight, and not even at the boat when we netted her. She simply took the bait and moved — not with the blast-off burst you get from most big snook, but with a slow, deliberate, unstoppable power. On the Tranx 500HG with 50 lb braid, I watched 250 yards peel off the spool during her first run. I had 420 yards to work with and I started doing the math. She shook her head once. That was it.
Then she stopped. We sat there together, she wasn’t pulling, but I wasn’t moving her either. A five-minute standoff. Then a slow back-and-forth over maybe 20 yards. Then she threw her head once, side to side, and I thought: here we go. But instead, like a slow train, she began to come. I reeled her all the way to within ten yards of the boat, where she made one lazy turn around the stern to the other side. No jump. No head shake. She was done.
I eased her toward Captain Rudy and his net. The moment we saw her full size, the thought arrived instantly: Houston, we need a bigger net. I guided her head in and she never moved. Rudy had to heave her over the gunwale with both hands in her mouth. When she lay in the boat, the reality of what I was looking at took a moment to register. I’ve been in the presence of a lot of big snook. This fish looked almost as wide as she was long , absolutely stuffed with sardines and eggs, which I preach against targeting every single day.
At Marina Pez Vela, she went 72 pounds, 6 ounces. Pending all tackle record.
Throughout the entire fight, the thought running loudest through my mind was not about the record. It was: if this is what I think it is, how am I going to tell Ward Michaels?
If there were any way to transfer this record to him today, I would do it without a second thought. Ward has given more to snook fishing, to the IGFA, and to the people lucky enough to know him than I could ever put into words. He deserves every honor this sport has to offer.
But the fish chose my sardine. And so I’ll carry this with pride, and with a weight on my heart that no scale could ever measure.
My deepest gratitude to everyone at the IGFA and the Tico Times for the remarkable work you do, and for giving me the chance to tell my fish story.
Will Philip Hefley, Quepos, Costa Rica
If want to fish with Ward in Chokoloskee, Florida, you can contact him at wardmichaelshuntingandfishing@gmail.com or call him in the U.S. at 321-246-0814. If you want to fish with Ruddy in Costa Rica, you can contact Steve Hoyland Fishing adventures by going to his facebook page or by calling his U.S. number at 832-526-4917
