Yellowspotted Trevally, world record submit story (As told to Larry Carter)

"After a long Sunday diving with good weather and an awesome viz in the outer Danae reefs we decide it was time to head home…

Some grouper were taken along with the usual Spanish Mackerel , several individuals of exceptionally good sized River Snapper and Green Jobfish , one or another nice Cobia and a lovely Yellowtail Barracuda that Emiliano took from a massive shoal…

Going home from Baixo Danae normally takes us through the South channel marker buoys and in route to the old Cockburn sunken lighthouse, home of Rosalina the giant Brindle Bass and the innumerous Trevally that dwell in those two structures…

…after checking the iron structure, and a few dances with Rosalina, but not so much fish, a pair of Spotted Grunter were taken and we headed for the tower less than half a mile North from this coordinate…

…this is a spot for drifts…the tower stands in 19 meters of water and goes all the way up resting four meters from the surface…approaching from the East as the tide gets higher, I dive in the sandy bottom a few meters before the tower, choosing to position myself slightly to the Northern side where most fish normally hang… reaching the bottom I get past the structure quite fast, typical of the currents that normally can be felt here…as I look up a small shoal of Yellowspot Trevally approaches head on…most are smaller individual but a larger one dwells behind…I let myself go in the current and let the small ones surround me to satisfy their curiosity…it’s been a long dive and I’m almost out of air…finally the big one decides to make a shy approach and I manage to plant a long shot in the back half of the fish…it bursts away and runs for the structure, I cannot stop him for it would surely tear the flesh and bring the spear to dislodge itself so I keep a gentle steady pressure on it…Francisco, our skipper hands me a float which I attach to the sharkclip in the end of my railgun…asking for the smaller 90cm gun, I load it in the water while fighting the current and I initiate a painstaking approach to the fish…swimming up current trough the reel line with a lot of effort I finally manage to get near the Trevally and plant a decent final shot and subdue the fish.

This one got weighted in a platform scale back at Sabor a Mar fishmongers and it tipped the 15,5kg mark…it was worth the effort after all!!!"