Just got sent this - 400ft wind if you lose your bait

Just got sent this - 400ft wind if you lose your bait

La. medical student lands 359-lb grouper



November 13, 2007



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.


Jezza's picture

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quality catch god thats some

Thu, 2008-02-21 13:48

quality catch god thats some great fish you got there great job on the grouper

fishy fingers's picture

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Shame

Thu, 2008-02-21 14:03

They had to kill it!

To all the virgins..............Thanks for nothing!

Bill's picture

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Fishfingers comming up from

Thu, 2008-02-21 14:06

Fishfingers comming up from 400ft I'm pretty sure it was allways going to die at least it was eaten that's a positive.

Colin Hay's picture

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That is a serious fish

Thu, 2008-02-21 14:26

Near enough to 163 kgs. You would need a winch to get it up.

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harro's picture

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holy sh*T

Thu, 2008-02-21 14:57

damm wot sort of groper is it,and r they spanish mackeral?,shame none of us would want such a big fish to die,, guess its the eddicate of a good fisherman,but at the end of the day,the war between man and fish happened and the fish lost.. i,m sure if it could of been put back it would of,but from that depth ...... no way ,funny enough its eyes don,t seem to have embolised or the throat.. well done guys good catch

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vans's picture

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Blindfolds his friends...

Thu, 2008-02-21 14:57

Blindfolds his friends... What a tool!

Bill's picture

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I love eating groper

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:06

I love eating groper especialy those big blues i get at busso pulled some monsters from there.Just waiting for that one at the obseratory to fatten a bit more before i shoot it
www.fishwrecked.com/node/5774

PilbaraBrad's picture

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that sure is a lot of fish,

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:09

that sure is a lot of fish, do they have bag limits over there?

mako magic's picture

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look like wahoo to me harro,

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:12

look like wahoo to me harro, and at the end of the day atleast the fish were eaten and not wasted like alot of trophy caught fish

Andy Mac's picture

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Warsaw Grouper (Cod)

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:14

They deep dive wrecks for them with spearguns. There was a story doing the rounds a while back with some incredible pics of a warsaw cod world record.

Cheers

Andy Mac

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We get Grey Banded in 800ft

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:17

We get Grey Banded in 800ft about 250m and any over 1m are protected, how is putting a dead fish back protecting them??

harro's picture

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deep woohoo

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:26

yup i fished out deep a few times exmouth a mate of mine who is a pro in exmouth put me onto some mad ground.. 300 metres + but rosy snapper /massive rankins etc are worth it,, i only hit it once per yr but my god have u ever eaten rosy snapper... yummy

worth the back ache 

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fishy fingers's picture

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Bill

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:29

I know what your saying ....I just dont like to see the big ones die but I know it cant be helped,we cant choose what we catch...up to a point.

To all the virgins..............Thanks for nothing!

Bill's picture

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I have eaten a rosy

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:30

I have eaten a rosy sweet meat

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I can understand the 1m rule

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:53

I can understand the 1m rule for cod up north etc which is a good thing as most are in shallow water. The rule not so long ago was 1.2m or 30kg, it is now 1m or 30kg. A 1m fish would be under 24kg and a 1.2m fish would be close to 30kg so I don't understand the reson for dropping the length to 1m? The fish are dead so if you do get one over 1m it goes back dead and you keep fishing hoping your next one is under 1m. I have talked to the fisheries about the rule and they say the dead ones go back into the food chain, they don't say that about jewies caught in 100m+?

 

mako magic's picture

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agree with you there jason,

Thu, 2008-02-21 15:56

agree with you there jason, totally sucks on how they came to that conclusion of dropping the length, not many fish from that depth will survive once brought up, so feels like just a big waste to have to let it go just to die, fair enough they will go back into the food chain, but still seems very sensless as the fisheries should know, weight to length factors and shouldnt have changed it.

jay_burgess's picture

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doesn't look like it Brad...

Thu, 2008-02-21 16:10

doesn't look like it Brad...

tangles's picture

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big fish syndrome

Thu, 2008-02-21 16:42

sounds like big fish syndrome! "look at my stonka big fish i just killed yee ha" suppose typical human mentality!

Bill's picture

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Isn't that what we do with

Thu, 2008-02-21 16:54

Isn't that what we do with all the big fish pics we put on here tangles can't see any differnce from my end

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Of course they would have

Thu, 2008-02-21 17:45

Of course they would have bag limits over there.

I cant see anything wrong with keeping your favourite fishing spot secret, google earth and the net aint doing any favours.

I havent had any sleep, maybe im grumpy:)

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fishy fingers's picture

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Question comes to my mind

Thu, 2008-02-21 17:40

what did they catch first the big one or the others ? if it was the others did they realy need to keep fishing I mean they seem to have done ok without the big un! or maybe if they cant go back as it was too deep then maybe they (we as anglers) shouldnt be fishing that depth we cant just use "it was to deep to put them back they wouldnt survive" as an excuse to keep killing big breeding fish.

To all the virgins..............Thanks for nothing!

mako magic's picture

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agree there bill, its alot

Thu, 2008-02-21 17:41

agree there bill, its alot of the time about the BIG fish pic, this one is no difference so no point putting the people down, it all went to food which is atleast a good thing and not dumped at the tip like alot of big fish end up in

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How deep is too deep? If

Thu, 2008-02-21 18:04

How deep is too deep? If your fishing for jewies over 40m that is too deep! as most your jewies and black ass caught at that depth have a very low survival rate. Snapper even at 200m+ seem to survive OK, seems thats most fish that have a similar shape to a cod, Jewie, black ass etc have a lower chance of survival.

fishy fingers's picture

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Good point

Thu, 2008-02-21 19:29

You raise a good point there vagabond unfortunatley we cant discriminate between fish like snapper and big cod type fish when it comes to what takes our bait so what do we do? keep on fishing great depths and either chuck them back dead (or likely to die) if there is a size limit on them, or risk being prosecuted for taking fish ilegaly (size wise I mean)or just keep taking them if it's within the regs, I know it's not easy to ask people to not fish over certain depths, hell it's bad enough trying to impose stricter bag and size limits on people but if we do fish these depths then from time to time people are going to catch these behemoths (spelling) and we will always have this dilemma of should we or shouldnt we catch/take them. I'm sure people will have different views than me but it comes down to this, most of the big fish of this type come from deep water they are without question the breeders, do we realy want to remove them from the ecosystem? I think not.

To all the virgins..............Thanks for nothing!

tangles's picture

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onya fishy

Thu, 2008-02-21 19:32

onya fishy fingers, totally agree. Look they caught it its dead so be it n hopefully it was all eaten, 400ft is pretty damn deep for fishing, unless they were targeting specific fish in that depth.

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I think you missed my point

Thu, 2008-02-21 20:20

I think you missed my point Fishy, i don't know what type of fishing you do but what i'm trying to say is someone fishing between 40m to 100m for dhufish is not a lot different from some one fishing 200m+ for Cod. The survival rate for both is near Zero. These Cod only inhabit waters of around 120m plus. If there was a maximum size limit for Dhufish of 1m there would be alot of floating Dhufish out there. I agree we can't discriminate what takes our bait it's a shame to see these fish not survive but the only answer is to stop fishing and when the the new regs come in that might just happen?

fishy fingers's picture

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Vagabond

Thu, 2008-02-21 20:32

I dont think I missed your point(I hope I didn't) Or maybe you missed mine It's quite simple if you fish deep you will at leat from time to time catch big breeders that probably wont survive should you chuck em back
thats a fact and if we want them to keep breeding then we shouldnt try and catch them!

To all the virgins..............Thanks for nothing!

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What do you class as Deep?

Thu, 2008-02-21 20:35

What do you class as Deep?

jimbo1's picture

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Exactly?????

Thu, 2008-02-21 22:10

Exactly what is deep? Unfortunately today we pay the price for the fact of little regulation from the past and now the only way in most circumstances is to fish deeper waters if you want to produce a good feed.

 

 

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FreoBear's picture

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Why we fish!!

Fri, 2008-02-22 07:13

This photo has stired a fair bit of comment from people. I have fished for years - back to the days when the idea of take everything you catch. Many a day was spent at Kalbarri sand point casting to tailor and keeping all you caught. For the old timers among us you will remember these days. We have all learnt over the years that the stocks are dwindling rapidly and by the comments posted here it fishermen are responding. But just to put a point out there are we not trying to catch a bigger and better fish than the one before? There is a lot of talk on this website about PB's so that would indicate that bigger is better!!!

If we continue to fish and claim PB's then the fact is we are striving for better next time. We see photo's of fish on the site and comments of "that could be a record well done". We fish for fun and to alot of us it's a passion and I am sure if we caught a record fish we would claim it.

Faulkner Family's picture

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fish for fun

Sat, 2008-10-04 22:15

3 simple words .we do get a good catch every now and then ,mainly when we go north,but in the end its good to get any fish ,if we are not carefull we wont be able to get many at all.fish for fun and fish sensibly

RUSS & SANDY

 

"A family that fishes together stays together"

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fishy fingers's picture

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Deep?

Fri, 2008-02-22 07:20

3 metres is deep if you cant swim!! But back to subject. Jimbo I supppse deep in this context is when it's too deep for a fish to survive should it be put back, All I'm saying is we cant use the "it was to deep to put them back they wouldnt survive" as an excuse anymore I know you need to fish deep to find good fish but but as you said "we pay the price for the fact of little regulation from the past" and we are just adding to the problem. we will continue to pay the price if these big fish keep being killed

To all the virgins..............Thanks for nothing!

Rodrat's picture

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Fishing

Fri, 2008-02-22 09:35

The reason people are fishing deeper and deeper is that all the fish in the shallow waters have been fish out!
As time goes on u will have to fish deeper and deeper and further out to catch anything! Talk to the older guys who fished rockingham and perth metro 20 years ago and they will tell u that u could go less than a few klm of shore and catch anything u wanted. Having to go out 15 to 20 klm out to catch good fish in 100m of water has knobs on it!


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NOHA's picture

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..No Orange Hats Allowed

Fri, 2008-02-22 10:10

 "Having to go out 15 to 20 klm out to catch good fish in 100m of water has knobs on it! "

I wish it was only that far out. Its over 40km out from Rockingham.

 

 

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mako magic's picture

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agree there noha, if only,

Fri, 2008-02-22 10:13

agree there noha, if only, to the 90's where we fish alot is around the 40k mark, gee have you found a 100m area closer to land have you rodrat, if so share aroundWink

Rodrat's picture

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Mako

Fri, 2008-02-22 10:25

What i meant was that you have to go far out! i dont fish out far, 15 to 20 was a guess! I think maybe u missed the point!


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Adam Gallash's picture

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fish far out

Fri, 2008-02-22 10:28

Its a great thing that people think all the big fish are out wide, hush hush Mr Salmo. Wink  You too Tapout.

 

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Bill's picture

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40km out can feel like 100km

Fri, 2008-02-22 10:37

40km out can feel like 100km but it's all good when you get there and 5km move is nothing.Once your over that 50 meter line distance is nothing

Rodrat's picture

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Big fish

Fri, 2008-02-22 10:38

I know you can get nice dhuies close in, just not like u used to be able too.
My mate caught a 8kg dhuie last week out at coventrys.


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Adam Gallash's picture

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hear what your saying

Fri, 2008-02-22 11:03

Hear what your saying.  Same with the big bertha's up here, except even in 20m its near on impossible to get them back down.  We've tried releasing them with a brick and the only thing that gets them anywhere near the bottom is venting them, not a good option for the fish but it feels a lot better than seeing them sit there on the surface struggling to get down with that big eye that just follows you, pretty horrible feeling.

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Kasey L.'s picture

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see, the way i see it,

Fri, 2008-02-22 11:23

see, the way i see it, without the warsaw those guys would have had a great day.

throw in the warsaw and they've had an EXCEPTIONAL day. a world record day actually; not a regular occurrence.

at the very least, don't take that away. sometimes i feel people debate (i won't claim total innocence either, I suppose) and post comments that really take away the essence of just saying 'nice catch'.

nice catch :)

Adam Gallash's picture

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Bag limits

Fri, 2008-02-22 11:32

I count 19 fish = 3 blokes, be 2 under on WA regs, no probs there really. Just looks like a hell of a lot of fish with that big mumma in the pic, without it we'd probably all go, what a great days catch without criticism...

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NOHA's picture

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Yeah but you got a thick

Sat, 2008-02-23 06:46

Yeah but you got a thick skin like a rhino.

It would take nothin short of a blow torch and a grinder to wound you.Wink 

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