{"id":232061,"date":"2026-04-15T00:55:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T00:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/232061\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T00:55:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T00:55:32","slug":"tampa-bay-captain-takes-uf-giants-rioux-watson-fishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/232061\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay captain takes UF giants Rioux, Watson fishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Standing at 6-foot, 6 inches tall and 240 pounds, Rob Chapman is usually the biggest in a room.<\/p>\n

In fishing terms, he\u2019d be a trophy in the top .5% of all men at his height. Making him feel small is a rare occurrence.<\/p>\n

At over 400 pounds and also standing at 6 foot, 6 inches, Desmond Watson would be an absolute lunker. Playing football at the University of Florida and during a brief stint with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Watson stood out for his size and made even the biggest football players look small. Chapman took notice, and reached out to Watson with an idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked him if he wanted to go fishing, and he did. He said he was in Tampa, so I immediately thought of taking him with Captain Brett Norris,\u201d Chapman said. \u201cNorris is familiar with Lightning players, Rays players and other athletes. The idea was to take the biggest human fishing and try for giants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The date was set for April 7. A few days before, news came across Chapman\u2019s feed that gave him another idea. Florida Gator basketball player Olivier Rioux had entered the transfer portal, and that\u2019s when Chapman sent him a message.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him before he leaves Florida, let\u2019s go fishing. He responded and said let\u2019s do it. I told him the date, he agreed, and I said I\u2019d pick him up,\u201d Chapman said. \u201cHe had met Des before and I think that helped get him to go. I couldn\u2019t believe it was actually happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rioux, like Watson, went viral for his size. He stands at a massive 7-feet, 9-inches tall and nearly 300 pounds. In fishing terms, he\u2019s a world record, with only a few humans in history bigger than him.<\/p>\n

In 2021, he was the Guinness World Record holder for the tallest teenager in the world when he was 7-feet, 5-inches tall at the age of 15. He spent his high school basketball career in Bradenton at IMG Academy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Ollie at 6 a.m. and I saw him standing there, he\u2019s like two stories tall. It was quite crazy looking. I said \u2018You ready to go fishing?\u2019 and he hopped in. I had to borrow a friend\u2019s F-250 and pushed the seat all the way back, and he still didn\u2019t really fit in,\u201d Chapman recalled.<\/p>\n

The day started with poor weather as Chapman and Rioux drove through rainstorms and Tampa traffic, eventually meeting Norris and Watson at 10 a.m. to fish in Tampa Bay. The weather slowly cleared, and they headed out to fish the flats.<\/p>\n

Norris and Chapman couldn\u2019t believe the crew they had, the biggest ever Florida Gators football and basketball player made Norris\u2019 boat seem small. But the fishing was good, all things considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first spot it was great. Ollie had never been fishing, but by the third fish he was pumping and reeling like he always knew how to do it. Des, you could tell, had fished before, he was casting and doing it all. It was funny when they both had a redfish on and Des had to go under Ollie, moving around the boat for them was interesting!\u201d Chapman explained, saying a good 45 minutes of rod bending with redfish, snook, flounder and more was had.<\/p>\n

After getting early action, Norris brought them to try for big snook, but with the wind picking up at his spot, it made the fishing difficult. Rioux and Watson were on a time clock, so after 3 hours of fishing, they headed back to the dock with a full cooler.<\/p>\n

\u201cDes was texting his grandma, and she heard he was fishing and catching redfish. She told him he better be coming home with fish to eat. We kept two redfish and a big flounder. A few days after, he sent me a message, they were delicious and she wanted to thank me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pictures of Chapman and Norris with the giants started to spread on social media, with many doubting their authenticity.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people thought it was AI. Honestly seeing them in person almost felt like AI, seeing people that big didn\u2019t seem real. But they were both super normal and really nice guys with a good sense of humor,\u201d Chapman said. \u201cOllie took a lot of funny pictures and seemed to have a good time. On the ride home, I told him we should go turkey hunting. I told him he could wear camouflage and be a tree, he thought that would be funny!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"7-foot, 7-foot, 9-inch University of Florida basketball player Olivier Rioux poses for a photo with Rob Chapman during an April 7 fishing trip in Tampa Bay. Provided photo Courtesy of Rob Chapman
\n Related Stories from Bradenton Herald<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Standing at 6-foot, 6 inches tall and 240 pounds, Rob Chapman is usually the biggest in a room.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-232061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-tampa","9":"tag-tampa-headlines","10":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}