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Coral Trout Identification

Well, I've spent the last hour combing the web for information about coral trout identification. There are several species of coral trout and they all look pretty similar. Ken originally thought that the fish that I shot on Sunday was a Leopard Coral Trout (plectropomus leopardus). But after much searching I think that I am confident that it is not a Leopard Coral Trout, but is a Giant Coral Trout (plectropomus laevis); also known as a Black Saddle Coral Trout. Both fish have several color variations and look almost identical at times. The only reliable way to tell them apart is by their pectoral fins. The Leopard Coral Trout has transparent pectoral fins, and the Giant Coral Trout has dark, non-translucent fins. So after reviewing all the photos of my fish and comparing them to the photos of the two different species, I am pretty confident that my fish is a Giant Color Trout and not a Leopard Color Trout. Therefore it is not a world record, since the world record for plectropomus laevis is 45.2 lbs. I'm still pretty stoked about this fish!!! These pics were helpful in the id:

21.4 lb Coral Trout

The weather was great, and I had not gone fishing in a while, so I planned a trip for Sunday July 20th. My buddy Jon was finally back from Hawaii, after having his radial head repaired, and he hadn't been fishing in almost 8 months, so I definitely had to get him out on the water. I put together a crew of Jon, Jim, Ken, and Tim. We left out of Agat marina at 4:30 in the morning and made a run for the NE corner of Galvez bank. The plan was to start out trolling and make out way to Santa Rosa Reef, about 30 miles south of Guam. We brought our spearfishing gear, and the idea was to do some spearfishing at Santa Rosa Reef. The morning started off slow with very little action at Galvez. Not really any birds to speak of. We trolled all the way down to the finger without any strikes. We then headed to Baby Bank and finally got the skunk off the boat with a solid barracuda. We made a few more passes without any more action so we headed for Stu Bank. We found the birds at Stu and worked them for a while for a nice sized skipjack tuna. After working the birds for what seemed like hours, we decided to head towards Santa Rosa so that we could check out the spearfishing. We trolled all the way there and missed one marlin hook-up on the way. I think we got to the area we wanted to checkout just before noon. We geared up and got in the water to find a swift current and not many fish. We all cooled off in the water and were about to throw in the towel regarding the spearfishing, when Jon suggested that we might want to drift with the current a little and see if we found a spot that was holding some fish. So I stayed in the water and started drifting with the current with the boat drifting behind me. After about 200-300 yards, I came upon this coral head that was loaded with fish. A big Napolean wrasse, some nice parrot fish, and some goat fish. The Napolean took off after a few dives on the coral head and after shooting a goat fish, I let myself drift in the direction that he went. About 100 yards away the current started to ease up and I found myself in the middle of a lot of fish. I had Jon throw the anchor again, and I signaled for the other spearos to get back in the water. On my first dive I came up with a nice Mu, or Big Eye Emperor. I was soon joined by Tim, Ken, and Jon. Over the next hour or so, I shot a few more fish. A Guilli, or rudderfish, a unicorn fish, and a bluefin trevally. Ken shot a nice oriental sweetlips. There were some really nice Cubera Snapper in the 20-30# range that I almost got a shot on. We had been out for a while and I told Tim that I would head back to the boat and hang out with Jim who had been patiently waiting and accepting our speared fish, but I wanted to make one more dive. Just then, Jon started motioning that there was a big fish over near where he was. I started to breathe up and I noticed what at first looked like a nice snapper coming my way. I started my dive and it just kept coming straight towards me. About halfway down I realized that it was a huge coral trout! The fish swam right under me and I rotated 180 degrees and continued to descend behind the fish. I lined up the shot, and thwack, let the steel fly! Perfect shot, right in the head! From 58 feet down I could hear Jon's excited, "waaghhoooooooo!" The fish immediately took off straight for a coral ledge, and obliterated a coral head in the process. I didn't want the fish to get under the ledge, so I grabbed the shooting line tight and muscled him out from under the ledge and started kicking my way to the surface with this big fish in tow. It had a couple more small bursts of energy, but quickly succumbed to the steel shaft in it's head. I got to the surface where Tim, Jon, and Ken had been watching from and the first thing out of Ken's mouth was, "that's a world record coral trout!" We were a ways from the boat at this point so we started the swim back. After a few pics, I handed the monster up to Jim and Jon and then we all got out of the water. At that point we were pretty much done spearfishing and after taking a few more pics, were got the boat under way for the long journey home. After the coral trout had been in the fish box for about 15 minutes it up-chucked a whole partially digested parrot fish that probably weighed around a pound.
We started trolling again and just before we got to Stu bank we hooked up with a couple nice rainbow runners. We worked the birds for a little while longer and then decided to make a run for port. About and hour later, we were pulling back into the Agat marina at about 6:45 PM. We were a little bit late, and a little tired after our 14 hour adventure on the water. The trolling was not very productive, but the spearfishing made the trip! The coral trout weighed in the next day at the Guam Fisherman's co-op on their certified digital scale at 21.4 lbs. The current world record for a leopard coral trout taken on breathe-hold while spearfishing is 12.1 lbs. So I have gotten the necessary paperwork together to submit this fish for a world record! We had the fish tested for ciguatera toxicity and it tested safe to eat. So last night we had the whole crew minus Jon over for fish tacos. I prepared the fish two ways; teriyaki grilled, and beer battered and fried. One of the best fish I've ever eaten, it was delicious! We're definitely going to have to make a dedicated trip back to Santa Rosa Reef, just for spearfishing.

Spearfishing

The weather was looking like it was going to be beautiful on Saturday, so I called up the guys and made a plan to go spearfishing Saturday morning. There was a new moon, so we decided to forgo any trolling and just hit the reef at first light.
First stop--Magundas Reef. We were in the water by 6:45 and it was looking good. The water was exceptionally clear, the best I've seen it on Guam, which is saying something considering the visibility here is pretty good most of the year. I'd say it was easily 125+ feet. There were lots of jellyfish cruising around; none of the stinging variety though. There were lots of parrot fishing milling around in about 45-55 feet of water. Tim and Ken both nailed nice parrot fish. A good sized grey reef shark showed up right after Tim nailed his parrot. There were some green job fish chekcing out the activity so we chummed the guts of the parrot fish to try to get them to come a little closer. They came in close but were very skittish and would dart off as soon as you dove on them. We had been drifting a while and started to get pulled by the current so we swam back to the boat.
Second stop-Breakwater Rocks. We anchored the boat along the breakwater and jumped in. The water was clear and there was not much of a current, just a very slight drift. There were some nice parrot fish, but they didn't want anything to do with us. I shot a unicorn fish and had just finished putting it on the stringer when two blue fin trevallies came swimming towards me. I only had one band loaded (I was shooting smaller reef fish) but I dove on the fish anyways. I lined up and cla-clunk, I pulled the trigger. A solid shot in the spine. The fish just shook a little as it tried to swim away. I quickly had it on the stringer and was very pleased. It ended up weighing 6 lbs. Nice for my first trevally. I shot a couple more fish at the breakwater and then we tried again for some job fish that Ken had seen. We swam some chum out to were they were and started a chum line. The job fish came in, but would not come in close enough for a shot. After we used all the chum, we gave up on the job fish and headed back to the boat.
Last stop-Orote Point. We spent another hour diving the inside of Orote point and picked up another couple fish. Ken shot a flag tail coral trout, and Tim and I shot some little parrot fish. We were all pretty tired at that point so we called it a day and headed in.
The top picture is our total catch for the day. One of the most productive days we've had spearfishing thus far. Overall, another great day on the water with some great dive buddies! The second picture is me and the Bluefin Trevally.

4th of July

We had a fairly uneventful 4th of July. I spent half the day doing the yard work, which was long overdue. Then we relaxed a little bit in the afternoon and watched some movies. The Navy was having a fireworks display at Polaris Point, but it was open to the public and was expected to be crowded. So we decided to put the boat in the water and watch the fireworks from the Western Shoals Area of Apra Harbor. I gassed up the boat and we motored out into the harbor at about 7 PM. We got to our spot and settled in to wait for the show to start. The show started right at 8 PM. The Fireworks were awesome! We had an unobstructed view and you could feel the boom in your chest as they went off. The fireworks lasted about 15 minutes and they were actually quite good. I snapped a whole mess of pictures. I had to play around with the manual camera settings. The best pictures were taken at maximum aperture with my Nikon 18-70m lens and with a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second. I ended up with several great photos. Overall it was a very unique and worthwhile experience.