Goliath grouper by the looks of it. Used to be called jewfish till PC.
Perhaps still kept in Australia. Illegal to keep around here. Smaller species of grouper can be kept.
I believe the fish is called a groper if it is a Democrat
It’s a “bass grouper”. Different species from the goliath, not found in US waters.
Swimming in the calm waters off Sharm El-Shiek, Israel, then Egypt in 1981, I encountered an identical grouper, that size, swimming towards me. I walked on the water back to the shore in seconds!
Not a jewfish, for sure. It is a Polyprion americanus, known to us as the “Wreckfish”. Worldwide distribution, generally in the deep of the continental shelves.
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/43972/0
I used to participate in the Wreckfish fishery on the Blake Plateau off of our Southeast coast.