Quite a Fish Tale

Fayetteville Grad Hooks Monster Snapper that Has Him in Lead for Statewide $25,000 Prize

Recent Fayetteville High grad Jack Schley went off shore fishing on Monday. He wound up catching a 25 lb. 2 oz. red snapper that put him at the top of the leaderboard in the statewide Big Cash Snap per Tournament.

In an interview with the Record on Tuesday, Schley said he wasn’t even trying to catch a trophy that day.

“We were just going out to have a good time and go fish and whatnot,” Schley said. “But our guide, Michael Kubecka, told all of us that he was going to a spot with some pretty big snapper, so we might want to enter that big cash tournament.”

The Big Cash Snapper tournament takes place eve ry year during the summer months. This year the dates are June 1 to Aug. 28. Eligible fish must be caught in state or federal waters along the Texas coast out to 200 miles. The top prize is $25,000.

“We just entered for the heck of it,” Schley said. “None of us thought we’d pull in a big, big snapper.”

On the boat with Schley that day were his cousins Lawson and Logan Fritsch, along with Parker Vitek, all of Fayetteville, and an out-of town friend of theirs Caden Schulte. They chartered the trip with hopes of catching some swordfish.

Capt. Michael Kubecka operates out of Matagorda. He took the boys about 70 miles out into the Gulf. On the way to swordfishing wa ter, Kubecka had the boys toss some lines into a spot where he previously scouted some big snapper.

“On our last drop for snap per before we went to go fish for swordfish, I hooked up,” Schley recalled. “Everybody thought I was hooked up to ei ther a shark or a big old group er. So I was fighting it for a while. And then when I finally got it up high enough where we saw it, it was a snapper, and we all just went crazy.”

They got the big snap per in the boat and then tried their luck at swordfish, but then Capt. Kubecka told them they’d have to cut the trip short to make weigh-in for the snapper tournament.

“We didn’t catch any swordfish because we had to leave early,” Schley said. “So the boys said if I win it, the next trip’s on me.”

Schley’s fish would have also put him atop the leader board of the prestigious CCA Star Tournament, which is also happening right now. Schley said he thought he had registered for the Star tourna ment as well. But after check ing in with the CCA, Schley discovered his registration had expired.

That’s too bad, because the top prize in the red snapper di vision of that tournament is a new Polaris side-by-side UTV with a trailer.

Still, Schley has a very good shot of winning the Big Cash Snapper Tournament. He’s beating the second-place fish by nearly four pounds. Last year’s winner, Joshua Lambre cht, claimed the top prize with a 22 lb. 2 oz. snapper.