Capt. Brett Holden catches his 1000th swordfish aboard the Booby Trap, July 26, 2015. Capt. Brett has lead his anglers and crew on over 1000 swordfish catches over the years. Brett says, “It was a great trip and a good bite this week. I’ve got the best crew I have ever had on the Booby Trap and that makes it fun and easy. Jeff and Matt have played a huge roll in catching many of these swords and we are looking forward to getting back out soon.” This doesn’t only make 1000 swordfish for Brett but the previous trip also made 500 swordfish for Jeff.
J.Miles

The Journey as told by Captain Brett Holden

“I started fishing for swordfish in the 80s strictly nighttime fishing at that time swordfish were believed to be fished out by commercial fisherman and the challenge was simply to catch one.  In 2010 I started daytime swordfishing  and broke the daytime swordfishing record of 7 daytime swordfish in a day by catching 8 in one day.  In 2010 we broke the Swordfish State record and landed a 343 lber on unrestricted gear.
Between 2010 and present time we have had 2- 21 swordfish trips catching 13 in a day on one trip  and 14 in a day on another trip. After that we set another record of catching 30 swordfish in a trip releasing 26 of them released with 23 of the swords on that trip estimated top exceed 200-400 lbs. and caught a new record of 15 daytime swordfish in ONE DAY. We traveled to Ft. Lauderdale catching a very nice  650 lb daytime swordfish that is still our biggest to date we put in the boat. In 2010 we logged well over 100 daytime swords for the season and in 2011 we logged 172 swords in 15 straight trips for the season. In 2013, we released an estimated 13 swordfish that would have exceeded the Texas State Record and took one to the dock setting a new conventional tackle Texas State record with a 493 lb sword. This swordfish still holds the Gulf of Mexico water body record as well for conventional tackle. Our longest fight on record was a 23 hour battle on a tiagra 50 here in the Gulf with multiple fish taking up as much as 6-14 hours of fight time on other occasions. I have logged over 40 double headers on daytime swords. This year we have only made 3 short trips out of Texas perusing the 1000th swordfish and did it this past week catching a total to date of 1001 swords and have logged 24 swordfish in those 3 trips with 3 double headers. Since meeting photographer Will Drost in 2009, I have really enjoyed following his foot steps in photography and spent much of the past few season trying to capture good swordfishing pictures. This has become a large part of my crews enjoyment targeting the swords.
We have had an estimated 5000 people attend our Texas swordfish seminars over the past 4 years and raised right at $1,000,000 for US veterans with all proceeds going to Everyday Heroes Inc. providing medical transportation and other needs to US Veterans.”