Fishing - What was this fish? Gulf of mexico, buttom of an oil rig, very VERYbig.

On Mar 29, 2:48*am, MoiMoi wrote:
In article ,
says...

Googling "fishing world records" will yield all kinds of sites that purport to
list the current IGFA records. Including this one (and yes, that misspelling
of "world" is theirs, not mine ;-)

http://www.swordfishingcentral.com/s...d-records.html

I have to say the mystery deepens !
Okay let's do it by elimination.
It was big and fat and hanging by it's mouth it was way taller than a
man.
And there was nothing very distinctive looking about it.
So of the bigger fish, that rules out:
- all the sharks (get real - even I could recognise one of those!)
- all the marlin (it had no spike on nose)
- all the tuna (it wasnt streamlined like a tuna)

Also it wasn't a name of fish I was very familiar with as a regular
eating fish
but it was a very 'english'/pedestrian sounding name - i.e. the name
wasnt
in any way exotic sounding to me.

"Giant sea bass" could be one option. Certainly the one in this photo
seems about the right shape:
http://www.californiafish.org/gbsbass.htm
But at a record of a mere 563 this doesnt seem large enough.
Also I dont remember it it having those triangular fins on it's back
that
appear in other photos. (There again maybe they just werent visible at
the time... ?)

So that just leaves the Jew Fish (== "Goliath Grouper"?).
Well it was certainly ugly enough to be one!
But again with a record of just 680 Lbs this also doesnt sound large
enough.

But hand on hear I am still concerned about size.
For example this photo of a 450lb Jew Fish is scarcely taller than a
man:
http://www.kellscraft.com/somefish/somefish11.html
Whereas our fish was MUCH taller than a man.
(Why do so many photos hang the fish nearer the camera lens than the
guy who caught it! - Pah)

Okay so all-in-all, I dunno. Probably on the balance of probabilities
I guess the ugliness swings it.
Maybe it was a Jew Fish/ Goliath Grouper, then. And I dont think
anyone thought it was a world
record at the time - but if 680 REALLY IS the world then it certainly
must have been damned close!

Or maybe the world record figure is just plain wrong.

This guy clearly thinks so! ("more than 700lbs")
http://www.siamfishing.com/content/v...&cat=photo_out

So what exactly IS the real world record for a "Jew Fish"?
And what is the process for establishing a legit "World Record" ?

Ship