coral trout size?

[Thomas Munksgaard]

Thanks for the answers guys. Its hard to identify them exactly but i agre that Roving coralgrouper is the most likely..

[Aaron Concord]

Here is a Marion Reef model with a Red Bass (Bohar Snapper) hanging off the same poor old Gamma!

As Duncan mentioned earlier, I have seen these models a few times out at Kenn and Marion Reefs, where experienced GT anglers were getting annihilated on PE 8-10 tackle.
25-30kg Trout in 1-2 metres of water are very hard to stop!

We were too far out for the near-shore "bar-cheek" variety, though the 'standard' trout holed up in the shallows and the 'lunar tail/coronation" models were on the drop offs.  It was hard to find a small (sub 6kg) standard trout to eat.  There seemed to be just a decent population of massive breeding adults on these far flung reefs.

The below image wasn't the largest landed.  I watched Konishi-san knock over a 30-35kg model in the blue holes region of Marion......it was a ghastly looking thing!!!!  It looked nothing like a trout when it came up.  It was more like a mutant cod of sorts!!!!
That was back in 2006.  I'd say the NOMAD boys would have seen a few more by now.
The head/teeth set up on the mega trout was something a barracuda would be proud of!

Cheers

Aaron.

[Mark Harris]

Man, Aaron!  That is huge. That's a Chinese Footballer/Black-saddled Coral Grouper/Bluespot Trout (common names are so confusing!!) Plectropomus Laevis I think?

[Dave Creffield]

Heres one from Kenn Reef you may remember Aaron. Great fun in shallow water!

Creffo.

[Mark Harris]

Jesus  . The Coral Sea is world capital of monster trout it seems! I only ever catch little plate sized jobs.

[Mark Gwynne]

Yep Mark you're right, it is a roving Coral Grouper. Those other ones are the Laevis variety, and also huge!!

[Brandon Khoo]

here s a monster caught by Matton Murata from the Grouper Boys at Jewell Reef in 2007. Damon reckons it was probably the biggest coral trout he had ever seen.

[Aaron Concord]

Hey Dave!!!

Funny you should pop up!  I had a few other photos of you with trout from that trip I was going to put up along with the big mumma above!
You cracked a few quality models in the 9-15kg range that trip.......take a month of Sundays to get one that big back near the mainland.
I still remember that great fight you had with that nice GT in the shallows at Kenn.......it was an awesome spectacle to film!

Mark,

It's a Plectropomus leopardus, mate.

It would appear that all of the live coral trout pro fishers don't get that far out.  The reefs are too far out and too small in size to hold the mass quantities of plate sized trout they want for live fish export, so it would appear that the smaller trout get eaten by passing fishing vessels/cruising vessels and the big mummas are too large for the average angler to deal with!
You're right about the local vernacular too.......the amount of name variants of these 'groupers' have is staggering to say the least.
I listed the 4 most common ones I know of, which are Plectropomus leopardus (common),   Plectropomus laevis (footballer),  Plectropomus maculatus (bar cheecked),
Variola louti  (coronation/lunar tail).
The irony is that they do infact belong to the tropical "groupers" and I have no idea why they are called trout at all!

Brandon,

That trout that Matton Murata has is a bit bigger than Kenji-sans fish!  That's an animal!
Kenji's was close, though that thing is a demon!

Aaron.

[Mark Gwynne]

Aaron are you sure it's a Leopard?

[Alex Jordan]

Some donkeys there for sure - slightly off topic but I remember snorkling off Kuredu in the Maldives years ago with a bus of a Napoleon Wrasse - easily as long as I was ... plus my missus diving with a Doggie in the far North of the Seychelles with a car sized 100kg monster a couple if years ago on our honeymoon - absolute horse!

[Aaron Concord]

Yeah Mark,

Definetly Leopard........

They can still exhibit some chevron barring like the footballer trout.

Aaron.

[Jay Burgess]

Great thread, nothing like a few decent demon trout

[Mark Harris]

Cheers Aaron. I had NO idea Leopardus could show that type of barring, nor that they grew anything above a few kgs.

Common names might be charming but they are always confusing. I guess the trout name came about due to the spots. But then there are other very spotty groupers that are never called trout......

[jake mitchell]

they are some horse trout. regerding the species, all trout over about 7kg are bluespots. if you look at the pectoral fins you'll see that they are dark. on other trout species such as the common/leopard and the barcheek trout the fin is semi tansparent.

jake

[Jay Burgess]

they are some horse trout. regerding the species, all trout over about 7kg are bluespots. if you look at the pectoral fins you'll see that they are dark. on other trout species such as the common/leopard and the barcheek trout the fin is semi tansparent.

jake

Yep I was under the impression that all of the BIG trout caught on offshore atolls was the species Plectropomus laevis .