1st Dorada

[Murat]

thanks for the recipe mate

i see that you are familiar with that species, not probably from uk but greece?

How much they grow in greece,i know that everything in aegean sea is much bigger than in other parts of the med. :hmm

 

[johnny]

nice one, yeah man murat

what is that fish called? unlucky about the grouper :waterwork

we live and learn, i wish i had some nice pics to post but have not caught anything yet since my dorada, except a few sargos.

:wave

 

[johnny]

yasou Ntrik, te kanis?

 

[Murat]

its a kind of grouper which does not grow as big as black or dusky but don't know its english name. May be some can shed the light about this :hmm

 

[Ntrik]

Geia sou Johnny

Murat in Greece we call this fish "Pigga" or "Mavri Sfyrida". Latin name is Mycteroperca Rubra and English speaking countries call it Mottled Grouper. Maybe you are right about having larger species in the Aegean because official world record mottled grouper was caught by Manolis Peristeris in island of Patmos at 7kg. I have heard of size up to 11kg caught by spearo. In Aegean they are common in some places with drop off and very strong current, you can see maybe dozens of them in groups hunting against the current. Are they common in Cyprus as well?

 

[johnny]

wow poli horeo psari Ntrik, afto photographia pou ehne ? sten alatha?

:wave

 

[Murat]

Yes Ntrik they are common in Cyprus too but not that size. Generally they are below 2kg range. Can be seen regullarly after 15-17m and sometimes at shallow as well. The one i shoot this week was in 9-10 meter and my dive buddy shoot one at 18 meters.

 

[Ntrik]

Johnny foto is of Manolis Peristeris with his WR Mottled Grouper caught in the island of Patmos. Where did you learn your Greek?

Murat yes these fish like it in the deep and can easily trick you to go deeper because they move slowly and always give you the impression they will come closer on next aspetto. What is the situation where you fish (good/average/poor)? Do you have many spearos there?

 

[Murat]

Ntrik, they are many spero compared to the country population..

fish condition, i don't know depends what are you comparing with. Probably just like any other overfished part of the med(poor). Especially when you consider the fish prices here are pretty high though this is an island :hmm

The more experianced speros said there was many fish in here once. Actually i see the pics of them with 70kg fish of all kind, dentex,grouper, AJ, corvina you name it....That days past... :waterwork

 

[Ntrik]

Sorry to hear so Murat. Seems is same story all around the Med. Last year it was going around that Syria has alot of fish. Well friend of mine went and told me he found it even worse than here (less fish and more pollution). From what I understand sofar (Shanes videos!) Gibraltar is the place to be as far as spearing in the Med is concerned.

Our situation here in Greece is that you either go very deep for the traditional grouper and dentex hunting or very shallow for bass and auratas. We have many bass and aurata population because of the fishfarms that breed them and that escape by accident.

Especially for auratas it is said that it there are no more wild auratas left in the Aegean only the ones that escape from the farms. Good news is that they will start to farm groupers and dentex extensively so will start to see an explosion in their numbers in the next two years from fish that escape. Otherwise for as far as wild fish are concerned it has become harder to find a 3kg grouper (legal limit) than a 5kg Dentex or AJ.

 

[Murat]

the bad thing about here is everbody knows that local reef fishl population going down but nobody cares it, they still shoots baby groupers(<500gr). No real protecting from local hunting federation and goverment.Local "professional" fishermans still hunts primitive type, netting in shallow waters,covering small bays with nets and catch all the little fishes although its illegal. Recently many many big trawler ships came here from Turkey to rape the our seas even shallow reefs :rcard as they do everyear. Unfortunatelly we can not do anything coz of poletical situation between Northern Cyprus and Türkey. All we can do shouting around about them to go but at the end nothing happens. They are banned from all over the Türkey and now they started to come here :rcard :rcard :rcard

 

[Ntrik]

Man thats terrible situation to be stuck in. Trollers I agree are the raping machines of the sea and are largely responsible for turning the Med into a desert. In one day troller can catch more than what all spearos in this forum catch in a year put together. I have seen too many times bycatch from troller maybe 200kg of baby red mullet as big as little finger that has absolutely no commercial value...

With the traditional fishermen its same here sometimes I dont know whether to laugh or cry with these guys, they have IQ of 5, they see that they have already screwed the fish along the coastline, but still insist to throw nets in the same places for years!! Also am hoping for better days for our sport.

 

[johnny]

a WR grouper caught by Greek. ematha ta eleneka mou apo te mama y baba mo, me lene Yannis.

My Greek is ok Ntrik but English better, i hope to go visit Greece this year, would love to spear and spend all my days by and in the sea. Do you know where there are some good areas and cool spearos that could show me around?

:wave

 

[johnny]

.

May be some more experainced sargo hunter would like to contribute to this post since i am not the most experianced hunter here, those are the things that i just observed....The fish habbitat may change from location to location aside from country to country...

yes Murat good point.

what about Doradas, i do not see as many Doradas as Sargos, please can someone shed some light on where they hang out and what they like, Shane are you there ????

 

[shaneshac]

Doradas like to eat shellfish in large amounts

These are normally found in areas between the rocks and the sand where they always have a plentiful supply of mussels, crabs, clams and other bivalves.

They roam large areas searching for this and the trick is to find their travel path and go their REALLY REALLY early in the morning

At the very initial break of day is when they come out to feed and are more eaasily caught

 

[johnny]

holy mother, that was quick.....

thanks Shane

 

[shaneshac]

I lurk in the shadows like the doradas