- April 18, 2024
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The two women who share the Georgia Saltwater Game Fish women's record for Florida Pompano got together earlier this month — to fish.
Cathy Sanders of Palm Coast tied Laura Cutter's 40-year-old record when she caught a 12-inch, 1-pound, 7.68-ounce pompano on St. Simons Island, Georgia, in October.
Cutter was 19 in 1982 when she caught a 1-pound, 7 ounce pompano. Her charter boat captain knew that not many Florida pompano were caught in Georgia, so he checked to see what the women's record was and found that nobody had put in for it before. He did the paperwork for Cutter, whose name at the time was Laura Cheeks before she married.
Cutter still has the certificate hanging on the wall in her home in Titusville. She walked past it recently and wondered if her record still stood. She Googled it and found news stories about Sanders. Cutter saw that Sanders runs a surf-fishing charter business, Fishin' Girl, and decided to book a day with Sanders in Flagler Beach.
Sanders said when she saw Cutter's Facebook message, all she could do was stare at it for several moments.
"It was surreal," Sanders said. "To see she actually found me and reached out to me. She said, 'hey, I'm the lady whose record you tied.'"
Cutter had never surf-fished before and wanted to learn, so she booked the charter for her 60th birthday on April 6. Cutter's husband and a friend of Cutter's who lives in Jacksonville joined the group in the south Flagler Beach area.
Both Cutter and Sanders caught a keeper Florida pompano among other fish.
Sanders recorded the experience on YouTube.
"We caught a bunch of fish," Sanders said. "She had a blast."
As they fished, Sanders asked Cutter if she still had her certificate for the record. Indeed, she had brought it with her. The two of them posed together holding up their certificates for the same record separated by 40 years.
