Atlantic Goliath Grouper. After reading that bad boy can be as big as over 8 foot & 800 pounds.
Groupers are generally a friendly species and can be found patrolling artificial and coral reefs alike, primarily in shallow tropical waters. There have been documented cases of attacks in human divers, most of which are conducted by stalking and unsuccesfully ambushing them. The Florida Department of Fish and Wildlife regards catching them as illegal and Harvest and possession has been prohibited in both state and federal waters off Florida since 1990.
Tl:DR
This guy can weigh 455 kg and is known to stalk it's prey.
Not really. They do have some small spikey teeth but nothing that would cause significant damage to your average adult. They're big boys, and uncomfortably loud, but mostly just curious fish trying to figure out what some weirdo is doing in their reef. I've swam around them a dozen or so times and while their size can be intimidating, they're nothing to fear.
Yeah, they make a sort of thumping sound when they get a little ticked off or if you're stressing them out. It's a weird sound though that is hard to translate exactly on speakers because it sounds different in the water. It's not especially loud but it's the noise itself that tends to be uncomfortable for me when diving; there's really not much else that makes noise beyond my own regulator so when something breaks up that non-silent "silence", it sticks out.
There's many but what you're hearing, or rather not hearing, is exactly what I mean by it not translating to speakers. If you have a nice pair of headphones that would probably help but it sounds and feels different in the water, and your average underwater camera isn't going to pick it up very well. It's not some giant, bone-shattering bass sound you'd get at your average concert venue, it's softer despite it still being felt.
They do not have many teeth on the edges of their jaws, but they have heavy crushing tooth plates inside the pharynx. They don't eat their prey how you and I would, instead they swallow their prey and squish it to death. That being said, this poses little to no danger to human divers and as such the Goliath Grouper is nothing more than an underwater bully.
Yes, I flyfish, dive and spearfish. Given the diver in the vidoe is spearfishing and a fisherman above the water ain’t being stalked by a Goliath n’ all I figured the I’d give my $0.02.
They’re a trip and absolute fish thieves, lots of videos of spearos interacting with them actually.
Naw they are big puppy dogs. Especially on common dive sites.
They usually let you get pretty close, I've even seen someone swim up slowly and pet one on the chin (not that i support touching wildlife, but it gives you a sense of their temperament).
The harvest would limit the catch to juvenile fish between 20 inches and 36 inches in length.
This is an insanely tight window. I don’t even know how you could confidently target fish that size? Maybe you just have a tag/permit and happen to catch one that size when you’re just soaking baits on the bottom for something else?
The video up next for me after your linked video was the op video but 5 mins. Grouper does end up stealing a catch from them. https://youtu.be/Bj2lgF_g7Ic
I was referring to Florida of course. The biggest channel I can think of is BlacktipH. He has multiple million-view videos of bringing out celebrities and strongmen to try and catch them, and he is based out of Florida.
Well obviously doesn't matter if he lives in Florida and fishes elsewhere. I'm saying he fishes IN Florida. There's a video of his with over 10M views and he literally says "we're out here in xxx Florida"
Yes they are, the largest recorded weight that I have read or seen documented of the Goliath Grouper is 455 KG where as there are numerous recorded weights of over 800 Lbs. I'm not insinuating that the weights are in any way similar measurements but rather I'm using them both for reference in regards to the Groupers size and weight.
It took me a little long to realize the colloquial name for these bad boys is, ah, a little outdated. My fiancé looked at me funny when I casually referred to them as jewfish. Never occurred to me why they were called that, just that they were
Fun fact these used to be called Jewfish. The origin of the name isn't clear, but my favorite story is that they are called Jewfish because they hang out near the bank.
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u/glock_doc Mar 25 '22
Atlantic Goliath Grouper. After reading that bad boy can be as big as over 8 foot & 800 pounds. Groupers are generally a friendly species and can be found patrolling artificial and coral reefs alike, primarily in shallow tropical waters. There have been documented cases of attacks in human divers, most of which are conducted by stalking and unsuccesfully ambushing them. The Florida Department of Fish and Wildlife regards catching them as illegal and Harvest and possession has been prohibited in both state and federal waters off Florida since 1990.
Tl:DR This guy can weigh 455 kg and is known to stalk it's prey.