FKA Kiteboarding Forums  

Go Back   FKA Kiteboarding Forums > MAIN FORUM > Something Rich And Strange ... Diving Tales From The Water Underworld
Connect with Facebook

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 07-28-2014, 09:20 AM
ricki's Avatar
ricki ricki is offline
Administrator
Site Admin
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 8,700
Default Goliath Grouper Stories Or Divers Go Down Better With ?

I just came across the clip of a guy shooting on scuba off Jupiter. The jewfish tried a fin but opted to go for the guys amber jack instead. There was a shark in the background but it seems the grouper was the fish to keep an eye on.





Some of the"best" stories are old stories and largely unverifiable. Still, an 8 ft. goliath looks like it could inhale a good sized object and they are as strong as a bull. Most of these encounters involve smaller fish, so who knows?


Here are a couple of interesting stories out of the Keys from: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1421113/posts

"I spearfished jewfish in the Florida Keys commercially for a living in the 1970's and 1980's. When a 600 pounder makes that booming noise with his gills and looks you in the eye like you are prey, you know it's time to bangstick him or get back to the boat. A friend of mine diving with me in 1981 was sucked halfway into a jewfish mouth, the only part visible of his body was his torso from the chest up. We bangsticked that fish in the head with a .38 round and he spit my friend out, minus flippers and wetsuit. "





I had that sort of audible swim bladder noise accompanied by head shaking a couple of times scooter free diving on the Castor in 110 ft. of water off Boynton Beach a few years back. There were over a dozen good sized grouper on the wreck. I was thinking it wouldn't be good to get inhaled on a breath hold dive at that depth. You can see some of this in the early GoPro video clip above.


Another story at the above link involved a guy who had just shot two mangrove snapper in about 30 ft. of water off Bay Point in the lower Keys. A rough 100 pound, 4 ft. long goliath grouper came up within 3 to 4 ft. of him and was popping its swim bladder. The next thing the diver knew he was seeing blood, his blood, in the water among a bunch of bubbles. The grouper had ripped his mask off and yanked his regulator out trying to swallow his face. He thought if it has been 200 or 300 pounds it might have done some serious damage, like taking him out. The state of Florida banned shooting jewfish or goliath grouper in 1990 and it looks like populations have been rebounding since.



There seems to be quite a few goliaths out there these days. Wonder if we hear about a resurgence in attacks similar to what happened in the early days before stocks were depleted?




From: http://www.caller.com/sports/outdoor...orth-retelling

Here is another story from the mid 1970's about a large grouper swallowing a six foot diver in the oil patch off Texas. The grouper was popping its swim bladder which has happened before other attacks. There is some uncertainty about just how far the diver ended up inside the fish but it did leave some bite marks on his tank. This guy and unknown to him at the time, another diver decided to go out and get this big fish. The second guy, the son of a dive shop owner went out with an old CO2 gun design. A variant shows up below, some of these fired rebars, not very accurately but with tremendous power.



http://www.speardiver.com/spearguns-...ection-13.html

The second guy ended up getting the grouper in the end but got pretty well sliced up for his trouble. The fish measured 7 ft. 4 inches and weighed in at over 500 lbs.

More of the story at: http://www.caller.com/sports/outdoor...orth-retelling




Speaking of old fish tales, this one is really old and in the form of a Roman mosaic now held at the Musée National du Bardo in Tunis, Algeria. It is believed this illustrates a large dusky grouper helping itself to a fisherman.
http://www.bardomuseum.tn/index.php?...tent&Itemid=97




This is a nice sized grouper I was in with on the Spiegel Grove off Key Largo a while back. I love to dive with them and shoot photos of them, not so crazy about doing a breathhold dive inside one though. When they get aggressive, shaking head, popping their bladder, I will have to back off, ideally sooner than later.


With the increase in the goliath grouper population and in spearfishing, aggressive jewfish encounters seem to be becoming more common. One diver gave the following opinion about that.

"Is it strange to you that all the above "attacks" occur on popular dive sites that are hunted and fished on an almost daily basis? Is this starting to register with any of you out there!!!? I am beginning to think that the divers that choose to hunt these spots are about as intelligent as the GGs that live there.

GGs are lazy, opportunistic feeders. They go to these sites because people feed them gut hooked undersized fish, poorly shot fish, left over boxes of bait, and so on. Over time the GGs have related humans with an easy meal.

A comparison can be made with squirrels at a local community park. People start putting food on the ground. Next they are eating French fries from people’s hands. Finally the squirrels recognize a person carrying junk food and climb right up you leg and snatch food right out of your hand. Note, this is not what or how wild squirrels eat. Some people think this is cute. (but not if it is a bull shark or a 200lb GG). People have created this problem, in park and on wrecks. My wife chooses not to go to the parks with food. I choose not to hunt on known popular wrecks……..for the same reasons. If you put some effort into this sport and go find some of the tens of thousands of uncharted wrecks, reefs and ledges, you will find that GGs are not a problem at all. To sum this all up, the known popular wrecks and reefs are Cone central. All the reports of pesky fish and coney boat captain stories come from almost always these kinds of places."
http://www.spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=19733

He may have a point, I made similar comments about a reported increase in aggressive shark encounters in the lower Keys possibly being related to conditioning brought on by increased spearfishing in those areas. Most of the encounters were associated with spearfishing and grouper popping their swim bladders just before things got interesting. In short, don't feed the fish, lest they bite off more than you would like.
__________________
FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

Last edited by ricki; 07-28-2014 at 02:03 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 07-31-2014, 06:20 AM
ricki's Avatar
ricki ricki is offline
Administrator
Site Admin
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 8,700
Default

DumpsterDiver on scuba boards found this clip showing some groupers laying in wait for a kill, then taking it. I wonder how common this sort of behavior is and in particular at more popular diving/shooting spots?




Here is another fish story, from a good while back. Most of the real colorful stories are dated. This could be due to normal distortion in the retelling over the years and/or due to the higher abundance of jewfish and large ones in particularly in those times. I came across the following story in Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Feb 19, 1961 in a general Google.com search.

It describes a group attack on a boy skin diving with his father under some phosphate docks. Well the are gregarious and can stake out a kill as shows up in DumpsterDivers clip, still a group going after something as large as teen? The boy was inhaled about halfway into a grouper at which point the father started working on extracting him which he succeeded in doing. More details appear in the news account below.



Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Google News Archive Search

The article reminisces on the old days when jewfish were really common and an "average day" for four spearfishermen was bringing in 5000 lbs.? Seems like quite a lot for an average day even when monsters were super common. That could be say 10 to 15 of them, more? What size boat would you need and just the time it would take to move them around would be considerable. So, it seems to be a high estimate. Here is a kill from the Keys, noteworthy enough to play dress-up and have a picture taken and everything.



From: 5 Goliath Grouper Myths | Grouper Luna
The article at the above link presents various arguments against reinstituting a season on goliath grouper.

What would you estimate the combined weight of these monsters to be? I would guess under 3500 pounds. If jewfish were really common in Tampa Bay and if the shooters brought some of those vintage fire extinguisher guns to take them, who knows maybe they could top 5000 pounds a day during aggregations. Now you have to bring them aboard, get them off the boat and not sink the vessel while you're at it?



I just came across this shot of Don DeMaria's haul down in the Keys. He seemed to be most active in the 1980's but started shooting off Summerland Key in the early 1970's. I don't think that is 5000 pounds of fish but with larger individuals in abundance, he might have been able to do it? You can look at his catches over the years at the following link, it is interesting to see the sizes diminish.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/keysli...th/5711534820/

He sure got a pile of sharks in 1985 in that one shot.

The FLMNH provides the following comments on hazards. Absent speared fish, I wonder just how common this stalking behavior is? Moving fast on deep breathholds I have encountered aggressive responses not that uncommonly. Still I think moving at slower speed, generating less noise and approaching more easily could well reduce this phenomena. I have become more cautious as I don't want to be detained on a breathhold dive, deep or otherwise. Scuba diving with them, jewfish usually just drift off without some dead fish in the water to gather their interest. Then there are all those old stories about people falling off docks, bridges, etc. and getting sucked in. Jewfish used to commonly inhabit such places and perhaps line fishermen conditioned them in these area to hit first and think sometime later?

"Danger to Humans

Very large goliath grouper have been observed to stalk divers and even conduct unsuccessful ambushes of the same. Large individuals of this species should be treated with caution."


"450 pound goliath grouper caught by Buddy Jenks at the Big Indian Rocks Fishing Pier, Florida (1976)
Donated by Kenneth Krysko"
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/icht...thGrouper.html

Looks like these two could have just wrestled to see who had the weight advantage.

Any more experiences or stories out there? Again, I have no interest or desire in seeing a season on these big boys to be reinstituted. This is as much for curiosity as anything else. In time, a whole new series of folk stories may emerge, perhaps even based on some fact. Time will tell.

.
__________________
FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

Last edited by ricki; 07-31-2014 at 06:57 AM.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:24 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.

Do not advertise outside of [COM] Forums.
Do not show disrespect for others in your postings.
Users can be denied access to this Site without warning.
FKA, Inc., it’s officers and moderators are not responsible
for the content of the postings and any links or pictures posted.

Report Problems by PM to “administrator” or via email to flkitesurfer@hotmail.com

Copyright FKA, Inc. 2004, All Rights Reserved.