{"id":406019,"date":"2026-09-21T08:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/406019\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T08:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:46:16","slug":"florida-fishing-charter-makes-an-unexpected-catch-a-us-military-drone-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/406019\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida fishing charter makes an unexpected catch: A US military drone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speckled trout, redfish, flounder, mackerel, sharks. These are what you might expect to reel in while fishing off the Florida panhandle on any given day.<\/p>\n

But on Saturday, a group aboard a fishing charter were met with an unexpected encounter: a US military drone believed to be a clone of the notorious Iranian-designed Shahed-136.<\/p>\n

Hot Spots Charters, a fishing charter company out of Pensacola, said on Facebook<\/a> it made the surprising catch, alongside a photo of the drone against its other, more assuming, snags.<\/p>\n

“Great 6 hour today with this crew! If anyone is looking for their drone please call Hot Spots!” charter captain Daniel Arsenault wrote.<\/p>\n

Another photo showed the drone taking up the entire bow section of the fishing boat.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This picture shows the drone after it was recovered by Hot Spot Charters, off the coast of Florida, on Saturday. – Hot Spot Charters<\/p>\n

\"Hot<\/p>\n

Hot Spots Charters displays an unarmed aerial drone caught during a fishing trip off the Florida panhandle Saturday. – Hot Spot Charters<\/p>\n

The discovery was reportedly made near Eglin Air Force Base, home of the US Air Force’s 96th Test Wing.<\/p>\n

The Air Force acknowledged a drone was missing from the Eglin inventory, though it would not specify the type, according to defense news site, The War Zone<\/a>, citing an Eglin AFB spokesperson.<\/p>\n

“I can confirm that we were doing a test and the test article went down,” the spokesperson told TWZ. CNN has asked Eglin AFB for comment.<\/p>\n

Arsenault, seeming unfazed by the catch, told CNN he came across the drone by chance.<\/p>\n

“Riding along offshore and saw it floating,” he told CNN.<\/p>\n

The drone appeared be an FLM 136, a clone of the Iranian-designed Shahed 136, which has played a key role in the Ukraine and Iran wars.<\/p>\n

The Air Force announced late last year it had cloned the Iranian-designed<\/a> model, calling them the Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, drones.<\/p>\n

Manufactured by Arizona-based Spektreworks, the drones are 9.8 feet (2.9 meters) long, have a wingspan of 8.2 feet, and weigh 70 pounds.<\/p>\n

US Central Command announced in early March that LUCAS drones were being used in the war with Iran<\/a>, “delivering American-made retribution.”<\/p>\n

The photos shared by Hot Spots Charters showed the drone missing its nose section and propellor in the rear.<\/p>\n

The company later said on Facebook, “The black suvs came and got their drone, all is good!”<\/p>\n

Some anglers appeared to revel in the catch of the day.<\/p>\n

“Fun fight but they’re super bony and taste like avgas,” one Facebook user wrote.<\/p>\n

“Aren’t those strictly catch and release?” wrote another.<\/p>\n

CNN’s Isaac Yee contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speckled trout, redfish, flounder, mackerel, sharks. These are what you might expect to reel in while fishing off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[161240,1292,161241,98236,161242,36481,28,30,29,12205,54253,161239],"class_list":["post-406019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-aerial-drone","tag-facebook","tag-fishing-boat","tag-fishing-charter","tag-fishing-charter-company","tag-fishing-trip","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-panhandle","tag-hot-spot","tag-hot-spots-charters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406019","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=406019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}