Hi Wishbone,
I am not Italian but if you mention groupers at night i can share something I know.
Of all the groupers I seen in my area, only the Red Trout or Red Grouper/Cod is a species that realy sleep like a log at night. I don't realy pay attention to other groupers ( except the Barramundi Cod ), so I realy know the one species well.
I have one location where if we go say once in two months you will find big ones sleeping under a ledge, the same goes for Maori Wrasse ( Napoleon Wrasse ) and the big bumpheads and all parrot fishes. Rabbit fish is another dead sleeper. They sleep with their eyes open cause they have no eye lids. This area is unique, this secret spot of mine must realy be a hot hotel joint for the red groupers. As long as you allow enough time between a hunt, new fishes keep occupying the same space and always 7kg upwards size.
This area I mention is quite over fished, so in the day time we noisy scuba guys won't be able to see these red cod/trout/grouper cause they simply disappear. They don't exist.
In some far away location I seen these red trout being so stupid, they will come close to you or have no fear of you.
Anyway back to this sleeping red trout. It is not a challenge, but if you want the meat, in area where they are hard to come by in the day time...I don't see anything wrong with it.
I got big ones from 10-15kg......sleeping ones which I never even see in daytime.......... I don't know where they hide in the day or maybe they are just too cautious...in this particular area. Even if I am noisy on scuba, my 100+ dives there in the day time not seeing a glimpse of any big red grouper over 5kg is sure something I can not explain till today. Other big groupers are visible in day light...... funny.
I was using my 85cm pneu those days and at 60 feet this short gun can't do much. Since Red Trout sleep almost always next to a rock, shooting them is best from the top , on the head. A body shot will end up no fish cause the spearhead will hit the rock after penetrating the body and not enough clearance to open up the floppers. Since the head is tough, in many cases I can only shoot one fish per dive, the spearhead wil not be able to be removed. I have never tried Hawaiin flopper those days, always the twin screw on spearhead. What I did was carry an extra spearhead and only hand tight the existing spearhead. So new spearhead, if one get stuck. The last shot I did there was with my 140cm JBL Aluminum but I realy prefer short gun at night.
These red trouts are so dumb when they are in sleep mode, if say there are two fishes sleeping 2 meters a part and you shoot one fish, it struggles and make commotion, the other sleeping one will wake up only to swim another meter or so and sleep again !!!!!!!
This red trout is powerful and fast for a grouper, unlike other grouper which is less agile but tough, this red one is both agile and tough. I had a once straigthened two floppers during a tug of war, a Scubapro spearhead. The fish was only like 12kg something. My pneu could not penetrate the head completely, not enough power but the fish got stoned.
The challenge of this location is not shooting the fish but surviving the often strong current at night and trying to navigate around the big reef area to find the secret location. It is in a middle of a straight connecting the Indian Ocean. Must use a boat with good surface support.
IYA
PS, I saw in TV some area is Europe is flooding. Man I thought flood is only in my area. Good luck on ur competition, what is the prize.............. a BMW Z3 ??
