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Massive Grouper


obone

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Got this email today and I thought I'd put it on here:

THIBODAUX , La. --A medical student who blindfolds his friends to keep his favorite offshore fishing spot secret has come up with a record-beating fish -- a warsaw grouper weighing 359.1 pounds.

The giant hauled in by J.J. Tabor of Thibodaux is 12 ounces above the previous Louisiana state record, a state biologist confirmed.

It's been cut down to fillets. The first fillet weighed 53 pounds, Tabor said.

He caught it near an oil rig 70 miles south of Fourchon, in 400 feet of water. He won't give a more specific description.

'It's J.J.'s secret,' said Joey Rodrigue, a friend from Baton Rouge who joined Tabor and Tabor's father, John, on the record-making trip Saturday. 'I don't even know where I was. He blindfolds us on the way out.'

Tabor said he thought at first that his hook with a live hardtail on it had it the bottom 'until I felt the big head shake.'

Rodrigue steered away from the rig.

'I put myself in a harness and just had to lay back and fight,' J.J. Tabor said. 'It was about a 15 or 20 minute fight.'

Tabor cleaned the fish late Monday afternoon outside his father's auto repair shop in Thibodaux. 'We'll split it up,' he said. 'I'll make some phone calls and try to get rid of it fresh. The rest, we'll vacuum pack it and cook it later.'

Tabor says he believes the fish is about 33 years old. He plans to send an inner-ear bone called the 'otolith' to a university in Florida where researchers can help determine the age of the fish. He hopes to get the results in about four weeks.

The world record, caught off Florida in 1985, is 436 pounds, 12 ounces.

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Joel ;)

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Shame how when rcord braking fish get caught they seem to always need to be killed. Without the groper, there is enough fish to clog a freezer up for a few months. By then itd be cheaper to just buy fish from the super market, it'd taste the same after spending ages in the freezer.:(

Wouldve been a good fight though:)

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Yeah you're probably right about that Kiara. I think they call it Baratrauma or something like that. A lot of blokes who fish down in SA barely throw any fish back as they reckon they all die anyway.

I'd have to see some scientific evidence either way (which I'm sure exists) before I made a comment though really.

I know some offshore fishermen take needles with them to puncture the bladder before releasing. Don't know if that works or not.

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who cares if they kept it

more power to the champ and can't wait to see the next record

how do any of you bashers know how many familys it feed or how many times this person get out there fishing

no diffrence to some blokes heading up to the reef to fill a freezer full of fish for a year

re venting a fish

this is also a very bad ider as many fish die from infections from dirty needles or infections that come from the hole not being sterlised

for releaseing deep water fish or fish that suffer from decompresion the only way is to drop them back down via a big lead bomb

this has been proven to be the best way to release fish back to the depths and in fact many bass blokes do this in deep dams and also some snapper fishos

good on it to the blokes involved and hey fish are there for us to eat anyway

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I can see everyone's point here. A part of me says well done, I'd be stoked. But then another part of me is sad that an animal of that size and age had to die.

I think its just to some people their conscience on unnecessary killing (what they would view as unnecessary killing) is stronger than in others.

This is a topic that we can all agree to that each person can have a different view on.

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Dan23 wrote:

Whatnow has a point....

Should we really be vilifying the people who obey the laws, or should we vilify the laws themselves?

very deep... you wisdom belies your years grasshopper... :laugh:

totally agree about vilifying laws... Moreton bay zone plan??? oh no, i went there again... :blink:

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Cowfish13 wrote:

I know it is legal, but it seems ethnicly wrong to me to take that many fish.

You know how I feel on keeping lots fish, so I won't say anymore;)

Don't get me wrong I agree with catch and release and only ever keep maybe 5% of what I catch, but I think efforts towards making tighter bag limits and strict upper limits like with Duskys is the way to go. I don't think being critical of people for choosing to follow the law is fair, I really think we should be challenging the law itself. Also, leading by example as you guys do and releasing fish is also a productive method of persuasion.

Just my two cents.

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shit thats big :o

ive read all the comments on keeping vs releasing fish and myself i would prefer to release my fish then keep but thats just me, what dan has said about vilifying the laws and not the fisho's is exactly correct. In MY opinion and thats all it is, is that bag limits and sized should be massivly overhauled.

I talk to my dad about this exact same topic quite a bit and he talks about filling massive esky's with fish back in the 80's and i sit there and look at the photos and think to myself jesus christ no one could need that many fish, BUT in all seriousness that was back in the day, alot has been learnt from then and although my dad keeps about 50% of teh legal fish he catches i am much the opposite about 5% i believe its as much a generation and how people were brought up. i have been brought up with stories and people raving about declinging sealife populations throughout the world and i believe that has contributed to how i act as a fisherman.

But please do not vilify people for takign home legal fish, it is legal and tehy are entitled to do it, if you are a catch and release fisherman lead by example and always be willing to share your knowledge with others. I know i have learnt a hell of a lot about what sort of fisherman i am in the past few months having caught some awesome PB's i couldnt bring myself to keep them.

thats my 2 cents on the topic sorry for the hijack

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fishyman wrote:

shit thats big :o

ive read all the comments on keeping vs releasing fish and myself i would prefer to release my fish then keep but thats just me, what dan has said about vilifying the laws and not the fisho's is exactly correct. In MY opinion and thats all it is, is that bag limits and sized should be massivly overhauled.

I talk to my dad about this exact same topic quite a bit and he talks about filling massive esky's with fish back in the 80's and i sit there and look at the photos and think to myself jesus christ no one could need that many fish, BUT in all seriousness that was back in the day, alot has been learnt from then and although my dad keeps about 50% of teh legal fish he catches i am much the opposite about 5% i believe its as much a generation and how people were brought up. i have been brought up with stories and people raving about declinging sealife populations throughout the world and i believe that has contributed to how i act as a fisherman.

But please do not vilify people for takign home legal fish, it is legal and tehy are entitled to do it, if you are a catch and release fisherman lead by example and always be willing to share your knowledge with others. I know i have learnt a hell of a lot about what sort of fisherman i am in the past few months having caught some awesome PB's i couldnt bring myself to keep them.

thats my 2 cents on the topic sorry for the hijack

fishyman i think that is the best thought out statement i've read in this ongoing ,endless, tired debate.

good on you

i blame rex hunt;)

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Kingtin wrote:

who cares if they kept it

more power to the champ and can't wait to see the next record

how do any of you bashers know how many familys it feed or how many times this person get out there fishing

no diffrence to some blokes heading up to the reef to fill a freezer full of fish for a year

re venting a fish

this is also a very bad ider as many fish die from infections from dirty needles or infections that come from the hole not being sterlised

for releaseing deep water fish or fish that suffer from decompresion the only way is to drop them back down via a big lead bomb

this has been proven to be the best way to release fish back to the depths and in fact many bass blokes do this in deep dams and also some snapper fishos

good on it to the blokes involved and hey fish are there for us to eat anyway

Agree Tottally especially when it comes to offshore fishing, You cant just head out and catch a fish, You put in alot of time, alot of effort and a dam shitload of money, You dont go out their and catch n release, You fill your fridge for a few weeks of feeds. And he said he'd split it betweent a heap of people, its perfectly legal so why not, Its fact if you wanna break a record then you gotta kill the fish (99% of the time anyway). Cowfish just as an example, say u caught that groper, and you new it was gonna be a world record, You would still release it even if you lived in a village with starving people, it would be enough to feed 100 people for a week.

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Fishin_lingo wrote:

Cowfish just as an example, say u caught that groper, and you new it was gonna be a world record, You would still release it even if you lived in a village with starving people, it would be enough to feed 100 people for a week.

Well that groper wasn't a world record at all and I don't live in a starving village so I would release it. I don't fish for records, I fish for fun with occasional fish taken home for a feed.

But I can see your point. In Vanuatu, we went out on a charter and the only things we let go was a couple of <25cm reefies. I didn't care that the fish were being taken because they were in fact feeding a village of about 100 people.

But you make the point your self that I was trying to get across. That one fish would be enough to feed 100 starving people for a week. So why would you need the other fish as well as that one fish?

But this is all my opinions and as long as they stay inline with the rules, then I can't do a thing about it.

I won't say another thing from now on. I get a lot of crap for my views from some members, so I'll just keep my mouth shut

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i have heard about infections kiling fish with barotrauma if using a needle thats not sterelised. also have been told that people who use the "spike method" most of time end up killing the fish cause they dont know what there doind when they jab the fish. there was a pretty good article on barotrauma recovery from fish in one of last years modern fishing. they carried out tests for survival rates on diffrent ways of releasing the fish. sad to say the bigger the fish the lesser the survival rate was proven so if true i would agree with kiara and say that it probably wouldnt have survived anyway. as for them keeping it im 50/50 either way so will not judge the guy as i dont know what i woulda done if i thought i had a record breaking fish.

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There was a good fishing article on TV over the weekend about the black jewfish and the survival rate of these when caught in depths of over 10 metres (it was alarmingly low). There was also a team of fisheries guys investigating ways to improve the survival rate (what a job). The swim bladders completely burst and there was no real chance therefore releasing is not an option apart from shark bait.

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hmm.. good to see that there're still forummers that can understand the complications associated with catch and release of deep sea fishes. rather than ranting on and on about the ethics of keeping catches etc etc.

Bottom line is the fish most probably will not survive. from my experience while running charters full time, most reef dwellers; jobfish, groupers especially, never survive the decompression on the way up to the surface. try throwing a jobfish or grouper from 20 metres depth back and see what happens. has anyone done that to see what the fish does? then try it with a fish from 200feet. what you'll see is your fish floating downcurrent to the next lucky fisho's boat to be picked up, or it'll end up as sharkbait.

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Yeh i agree with ash even though there not breaking the law personly i would feel bad about keeping a fish that big and has lived for that long but ohwell i reacon not all of the groper would have been eaten anyway and half would end up in the tip :( Dont get me wrong i live eating fish ocasinally especially when camping but feel even better when i let a fish go to breed and give more fish to catch.

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  • 1 month later...
:) :) I do most of my fishing in the Hervey Bay area,I've seen a few groper while diving in the bay waters ,how anyone could kill one of these rare harmless fishes is beyond me. I know If any locals seen one come up on a line you would not be popular.I thought it was illegal to catch one. [img size=393]http://www.australianfishing.com.au/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/groper.jpg

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