AYE CARUMBA- Giant Grouper Declared New Species
 

found off the coast of Cuba


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26334112/

Yeah, you'd think they would come up with another name than Goliath, which is already taken. I saw a Jewfish (softball for Dee8go, I know) that we think was 600-700# while diving in Islamorada a few years back. I had always heard two or three divers had been taken out by Jewfish, so I pretty clear of the blanker. I can tell you that I wrote in my dive log that "its jaws were wider than my chest with the tanks inlcuded."

Anyhoo, here's the local excitement on the grouper front from Feb. of this year:

http://www.wwltv.com/sports/stories/wwl111307khgroupercaught.24edfbe.html

I am going to go make a drink and re-read your response, to give you the deserved honor of my spewing on the monitor:D

I've got the remnants of a keg of Amstel left over from Saturday and the rig has to go back by this Saturday, so a liter or so of beer to start with. Be back in 5.

OK, mission accomplished.:D

Here's a full complement of recipes. Just remember to increase the amounts 5-tenfold.

http://www.all-fish-seafood-recipes.com/index.cfm/list/Grouper

My biggest loss in Katrina was a freezer full of probably 200+# of vacuum sealed grouper, red snapper, 4 different types of tuna, amberjack, ducks, geese, venison, ect....

My insurance adjuster felt my pain too:cool:

Oh man. That sucks. (All relative of course.)

OTOH, I got to whine about losing a year's worth of early-mid-life crisis efforts, to be made up in the following year(s);)

Why not use this as an excuse to get a propane electric backup system (if you can't get NG that is).

Ice = civilization

I could go NG, and a forum member here offered to ship me one at the time, but this was a once in 20 year occurrence, so next time I will just go to the camp and get my rug generator;)

If I get a big genset, inevitably it will become yardart in a few years.

I watched a NOVA special a month or so ago and it was a study on the coastal waters off Cuba. Apparently since commercial fishing is banned the reefs are as they were for hundreds of years. Many new and different species being found in the area now.

If you don't get at least fairly regular outages over the year, it's probably not worth maintaining. But, the ones I've seen are relatively inexpensive, and can be run indoors, safe from missiles and rust mites.

I think we were talking $5-$7K but we don't have regular outages at home, so I haven't strongly considered one. We do at the river house during the winter, and have a stunning lp generator there......but no one is ever present when the power goes out.

In retrospect, I would have rigged up some battery powered rig to turn on light bulbs under the house so the pipes wouldn't freeze--as we leave nothing in the freezers or refrigerators there during that time of year, but I didn't have a vote at the time the generator was purchased.

Years ago (1958-1965) when I was a deckhand of sports fishing boats out of Port Aransas, Tx. we used to see Jew fish/grooper upwards of 6-700 lbs around the oil rigs. Every once in a while someone would catch one on a rod or a scuba diver might spear one. These divers were highly advised not to spear them since once shot the grooper would take off through the legs of the rig. If the thrashing of hitting the legs didn't kill the diver the barnacle cuts would cause him to slowly bleed to death before he got back to the boat.