Posted on 09/11/2006 10:23:04 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida diver shot a large grouper with a spear gun then apparently drowned when the fish sped into a hole, entangling the man in the line attached to the spear, investigators said on Monday.
The 42-year-old man, whose name was withheld, was free-diving in about 25 feet (7.5 metres) of water off the lower Florida Keys on Saturday and speared a Goliath Grouper, Monroe County Sheriff's Detective Mark Coleman said.
"It looks like the fish wrapped the line attached to the spear around the victim's wrist. The fish then went into a hole in a coral rock, effectively pinning the man to the bottom of the ocean," Coleman said in a news release.
Police divers found the speared fish tightly wedged into the hole, with the man's body still tangled in the line, a sheriff's spokeswoman said.
Goliath Grouper are the largest members of the sea bass family and can weigh hundreds of pounds.
You know, that spidey hidey-hole wouldn't have been there for the grouper to retreat within if Rove hadn't gotten the hurricane machine mixed up with the earthquake machine this week.
The BEST spearfishing is in the kelp beds just off of Malibu. I used to go out there almost daily. You had to be there at daybreak because that when the sea was calm.
Daybreak, isn't that shark feeding time?
Don't bring lungs to a gill fight.
I think it's down to him and Ahab. And Quint.
So, where was this guy's dive knife?
LOL - as opposed to any who can describe how they went out?
YOu said just what my husband says. He hates spear fishing. He dives and says he feels as if he is in the fishes' living room down there, he is almost reverent about it. And says "do you go into someone's house and kill them?". He doesn't even eat fish anymore.
Some things and people need killin'. And eating meat and fish is fine but the undersea is different if you dive. I know it sounds illogical but throwing in a line to catch some food is different from killing grouper for sport.
Score one for the grouper!!
The first time I saw one, and it was not nearly full-grown, I had just jumped in, opened my eyes, and there it was. I was so shocked by the sight of it close by, I practically shot back into the boat in one leap.
All rules seem to have an exception.
I am amazed at how fish can seem to reason out a solution beyond what we would normally expect. I was on a trip to a steel tower off Virginia, fishing for amberjack, and we divers in the water videotaping the scene below. One of us lost a good-sized fish when the line broke, and on reviewing the tape, we saw the fish swim down with the hook in its mouth, round a leg of the tower several times, then yank back hard, snapping the line.
Damndest thing I ever saw.
There was also a move to change the name of Jewfish Creek north of Key Largo a while back, but that didn't succeed. Anybody who's driven down to the Keys on U.S. 1 will cross it on bridge with a sign identifiying it as such. I don't think "Goliath Grouper Creek" would have fit on the sign . . . .
I understood that after I wrote it:) If he went to heaven then he will be in small class.
Yes, you are correct, jewfish are completely protected in Florida, the guy was breaking a game law.
Apparently jewfish, being a shallow water fish, are sitting ducks for divers, who decimated the population some years ago, thus earning them their current protection. These days they are back in good numbers, the things are all over the place, but no one is making a move to let us catch a few...a shame, they are wonderful eating.
Nobody I know calls them goliath groupers, not even my friends who are Democrats. Seems that even "liberals" have a limit as to the amount of political correctness they can swallow.
I don't think "sport" must involve a risk of life to be classified as such. Just a certain level of skill and difficulty should suffice. 'Course, I do note that they are called "game" animals. OTOH, sports such as tennis are not usually considered as being to the death.
Mmmmm...grouper!
Not in this day and age it doesn't, but it absolutely did back in Roman, or Medieval times. That was my point.
I guess today, they call it "extreme sport" ;-)
AND! Hemingway never turned around in the woods/forest/river and had a _________?(U fill in the blank) looking him as though he was gonna be lunch.
"It's Grouper. It's Grouper."
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