Back in Belize now...
...and here's a photograph to readjust your ideas of "big".
On my last two smallmouth bass fishing trips with Jeff, we were happy to catch a 2-2.5 pound smallmouth a bit over 18 inches. In river "X", those are pretty big fish.
Now I'm back in Belize.
Here's what they consider "big fish" down here.
This fellow was dressing out a goliath grouper (formerly known as "jewfish"), after a day of bottom fishing at the reef. This one weighed 120 pounds with a total length equal to the distance from the floor to my navel, a mere shadow of the truly exceptional ones that are 3 and 4 times this size.
The head, once removed, weighed 12.5 pounds. That's substantially bigger than the weight of the world record smallmouth bass.
I bought the head so I could extract the otoliths (ear stones) for a study I'm doing looking at fish movements. I usually extract otoliths with a knife and tweezers. I'm going to have to find a hacksaw to even have a chance of opening the skull on this fellow.
Fish add a ring of growth to their ear stones every day. By going back and analyzing the chemicals in the ear stones, I hope to determine where this fellow has been spending his time. Goliath grouper normally spend their early years hiding in the roots of mangrove trees.
This one might even have spent its' youth in Placencia Lagoon where I work.
There's a long history of fishing for Goliath grouper in Placencia Lagoon. For now, they can still be found but there is some evidence their numbers are beginning to dwindle. By learning more about their distribution, abundance, and habits, Belizean scientists hope to create management strategies suitable to conserve this truly remarkable species.
That's a big task. But "big" is a relative term.
