Puerto Rico grouper fishing trip

[ROBERT REYES]

We had pretty good weather this last month, I gave one Freediving /spearfishing clinic, and went to spearfish a lot.
Here is a short story of one of those days.

Went out very early in the morning with Puerto Rico Freedivers club member, Jorge Rodriguez, he was on vacation so we took one week day out to spearfish, we trailered the boat a few hours to a spot we like a lot, and after a 45 minutes boat drive we were in crystal clear warm waters.

It was a little windy, but the waves were small, there was some current, enough to make your life misserable in the deep dives we had to make, so we
had turns while drifting and spearing.

I had taken 3 oceanic trigger fish, when a very nice looking fat hammerhead decided he wanted some taxes to be payed, and so we moved to a less "sharky area", if there is something like that were fish abound.
On the next drifts we saw a few dog snappers, I took 2 of them , 16 and 20 pounds respectively.

On my last drift, all I could see was white sand in the bottom and tons of bait fish, I was on my wahoo mode , and saw two small rocks on the bottom.
As I swim to intersect the structures on my drift, I noticed one of the rocks started to move , Hummm! , thats no rock, looks more like a small grouper.

So I started my dive really slow and quiet, the rock and the fish started to look bigger as I aproached, the fish started to notice my presence and turned his head towards me, but as I went deeper, was going slower, I could not believe that my 100 foot float line could be holding me back, the fish did not looked too far away, so I started kicking slowly, the grouper began to move his pectoral fins in the particular circle patern they tend to do, kind of curious, kind of ready to flee , Yeap! , I knew I was going to loose him.
By know it did looked bigger than I originally though, and I was thinking of not even pulling the trigger because I would not be able to penetrate the hard head bones, but the water presure was making me sink faster now,
so I desided that if I had a good shot, I would take it, he started moving sideways wich gave me a clear shot at the side of the head, and I let the shaft fly.
It was a clean shot to the gill plate, right under the eye,the spearpoint went all the way to the other side, but was afraid he would use the rock next to him to bend the shaft and break the mono, so I started pulling him up.

It looked kind deep now, and it was obvious that the clear waters had fooled me on how deep I was, and the fish made a strong run for the bottom , and it turned me sideways while I was swiming up, that was it, I let the float line go, put my arms straight up, and headed for clean fresh air with a grin on my face.

Once on the surface I realiced that the current had helped me avoiding the fish getting into the rock, but now I could see a few more rocks coming into view.

So I pulled him hard, and once he was 20 feet or so from the bottom he did not put much of a fight, that is until he got to the surface and started trashing all over the place, with my hands on his gills, those of you who had taken groupers know the gills are really sharp, he even had his air bladder full of air, and was floating.
It looked gorgeous on the surface, all light up with the tipical black blotches and brassy spots and with such clear waters and the sun hitting him, what a black beauty!.
It was a Real black, (Mycteroperca bonaci), certified scale at 51 pounds,
2 pounds short of a world record.

My D-3 said 86 feet , 1:52 secods, no wonder my float line was holding me back, the wind and current were pulling it away from me.
Jorge said we already had our take from the Universe , it was enough for us, so we headed back to shore as soon as the photo session was over.

[foxfish]

Great report Roberto, very well done & very well told.

[Elvin]

Great fish Rob! take me fishing!!

[rcerdena]

Tocayo:
muy buena pesca!
Excelent description of the dive to shoot the grouper and what can I say...the pics speak for themselves!

Saludos,

Roberto

[Bucket One]

Nice carbo Roberto.

[Asturven]

Tremendo Aguaji Roberto,

Congratulations

Ivan