Missing a drone? Call your local fishing charter to see what it’s dragged out of the water recently.
Hot Spots Charters in Florida fished out a unique catch while chartering near Eglin Air Force Base on Saturday: a delta-wing unmanned aerial drone.
The drone resembles a Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, used by the U.S. military during Operation Epic Fury. The platform, built by SpektreWorks, is a one-way attack drone that was reverse-engineered after the Iranian Shahed-136 and can be launched by catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff and mobile ground systems.
LUCAS drones cost the U.S. military $35,000 per platform and are a variation of the company’s FLM 136 target model, which is designed for counter-drone training while resembling Iran’s Shahed-136.
On Thursday, two days prior to the charter crew finding the drone, a LUCAS UAS “impacted” the water during a routine, scheduled test on the Eglin range, a base spokesperson told Military Times.
“The aircraft has been recovered and is back in the Department’s possession,” the spokesperson said.
The base would neither confirm nor deny if it was the same drone.
The base’s test and training range is approximately 120,000 square miles of overwater airspace, covering part of the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida panhandle to the Florida Keys.
Hot Spots posted a photo of the drone alongside catches of red snapper and mahi-mahi, while a local aquatic photographer with the handle Aquatic Charlie also posted photos on his own social media account.
The images show the drone largely intact, only missing its engine, propeller and nose cone — damage likely to have occurred upon impact with the water.
Hot Spots Charter and the captain who found the drone did not immediately return a Military Times request for comment.
Eglin, located in the western Florida panhandle, is home to the 96th Test Wing, which is the test and evaluation center for Air Force-delivered weapons, navigation and guidance systems, command and control systems and Air Force Special Operations Command systems.
“The wing provides expert evaluation and validation of the performance of systems throughout the design, development, acquisition, and sustainment process to ensure the warfighter has technologically superior, reliable, maintainable, sustainable and safe systems,” the 96th’s fact sheet reads.
In December 2025, U.S. Central Command announced the launch of a unit, titled Task Force Scorpion Strike, that is equipped with LUCAS drones and based in the Middle East. Personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command Central, housed at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, launched the unit and led the subsequent Task Force Falcon Strike, focused on multi-domain, multinational attack drones.
