Off beaten track

Big fish are rare nowadays. Even in the times of Arthur C. Clarke�s early ocean explorations, the big groupers were getting hit with unsporting (not to mention illegal) spear fishermen donning tanks and hunting these gentle giants out of existence. Every now and then I see a grouper that�s a couple of feet long and I get inordinately excited. It is sobering to think that 30-40 years ago these would not have been of much note. For a big fish to survive now, it has to be canny and clever. It is literally survival of the fittest to ensure it doesn�t end up with a spear from the likes of Kalu Mahathaya and Ikkiya amidships. There is such a fish on a wreck in Colombo and a sighting of it is a rare treasure. I have seen him a few times, most memorably on a night dive (more to come on that later) but the majority of the handful of sightings had been from a great distance and for a fleeting moment. The closest I got to him in 2011 was one day towards the latter of the season. It was one of my ...

DJ and I had seen the net stretched taut on the crane like structure on the Medhafaru the last time we had dived and we knew it meant trouble. Sure enough on the next dive at the wreck, as Nish, Keerths, Daniel and I started our dive; the first thing I saw was an outline of a large fish, seemingly motionless next to the crane. Swimming closer the silhouette resolved itself into a blue-line grouper that was hanging off the net by a loop that had effectively created a noose. You could see where it had tightened as the fish had fought, white flesh showing through the blue and green skin. Initially it was hanging so still, swaying quietly in the surge that I thought it was dead but as I got right up next to it, its fins flapped and it tried to feebly get away. The nylon on the net was wrapped tight and taught against the fish. These groupers have a habit of lying in wait for prey and then shooting out at them and it looked like this fish had picked a very bad place to set an ambush, runni...