Belair fisherman bags 400-pound grouper

When Belair resident Eustace ‘Santa’ Vincent went diving last Wednesday, never in his wildest imagination did he think he would catch a 400-pound grouper.

In an interview with SEARCHLIGHT yesterday, Vincent said he has the tide to thank for pulling him to the spot where the fish was, as he had stopped going to that area.{{more}}

He said after he was carried there by the tide, he looked down and saw the fish.

“When I look…I saw this big yellow fish, so I don’t make the fish see me, because if it see me, it woulda run,” Vincent said.

He said he hid behind a rock and took a shot at the massive fish with his fish gun.

“I go in close to it and I hit it one shot down by its gill…and it go up and like it stagger it. It run off with a speed and jerk the gun out my hand, so when it jerk the gun out my hand, I had to let it go.”

Despite a failed first attempt, Vincent was not daunted and he decided that he would return to water to look for the fish and try and catch it.

“When I go back down by the stone, I ain’t meet it dey…when I look back out in the clear, I see it lay down in the clear with my gun up in the air,” the diver said.

He said at first he thought the fish was dead, so he swam in for a closer look.

“So, when I go now to get close to it, it move out in a speed again. And when it moved it went to the same place, where I shot it first and I went and give it a second shot with the other gun.”

He explained that although the fish tried to escape a second time, he was able to pull it to the surface of the water with help from his crew mates and get the large fish in the boat.

“When it got on the surface of the water, I put it alongside the boat and put a lasso around the tail part and where the place was rough, we let the boat rock until it got inside the boat,” he said.

The scuba diver told SEARCHLIGHT that the fish was immediately sold for US$1,000 to the Cotton House hotel in Mustique, with which he has a great business relationship.

He joked and that it was like carnival when he brought the fish to shore, with persons coming from all over Mustique to observe the spectacle.(CM)