• interesting report!

    did my first steps (Cuba) with cubera by using this kind of setup (euro 120 +7,5mm sahft) and lost about fiftee per cent of targeted fish ...
    So I early changed by using mini ice pick spear tips style
    hunting cubera in a wreck needs most of the time a killshot because then frustration is on the spearo side!;)


    Not to be persnickety or anything :D, but isn't that a dog snapper in this picture? The white triangle under the eye? And the shape.


    I find them to be the masters at holing up after a non kill shot. Cuberas, even the few larger ones I've shot, will make a good first run but then kind of peter out. But they don't hole up….I mean bury themselves and disappear in the coral.


    I had to strap on scuba to get a dog out that had taken my 100 foot float line, 12 foot bungee and 18 feet of shooting line straight down. Vertical. When I got down to the rock he'd gone in, I had to crawl in and reach back up over my head on a shelf, to get him out.


    Even El Marco might not have been able to get that one out on a breath hold.. :laughing: Jake didn't even try. t used a half of a 80 liter scuba tank getting that fish….and my spear back.

  • two things i would like to share about cubera:
    -those who experienced hunting in the Med Sea may share my feeling: as well as the dentex cubera is a deep/ clever/ distrussfull/ gregarious fish
    -big cubera get often parasitized by remora


    pic of a cubera I hold in my arms... as if I felt fear it escapes... taken after several long hours chasing!

  • two things i would like to share about cubera:
    -those who experienced hunting in the Med Sea may share my feeling: as well as the dentex cubera is a deep/ clever/ distrussfull/ gregarious fish
    -big cubera get often parasitized by remora


    pic of a cubera I hold in my arms... as if I felt fear it escapes... taken after several long hours chasing!


    Nice cubera, funny you say that though, most big Cubera can be shot in between 10 to 100 ft, very curious fish... always come in for a close look before bolting, if you know they are around and take that first opportunity.... If not they will play mind games with you forever ;)

    A bad day at sea is better than a good day in the boatyard
    George Steele

  • isn't that a dog snapper in this picture?.. the white triangle.. the shape


    most of the time cubera looks like a gigantic gray snapper
    the pic come from a vid here an other pic from the vid after the shot..;)


    Yep, that's a cubera alright. Thanks for the clarification. :)


  • pic of a cubera I hold in my arms... as if I felt fear it escapes... taken after several long hours chasing!


    I was trying to hold this one in my arms after I shot it and my shooting line broke. I guess he wasn't in a romantic mood and didn't want to be hugged so he busted me in the mouth with his head. :laughing:
    I got back to the boat where my wife and daughter were. They thought it was funny as hell with the blood coming out of my mouth and the fish in my hand….:D


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  • I once bounced/skived a shaft of a +40 lb cubera's head, diving off Big Pine, and that was nearly a point blank shot. Gun was a rob allen 120 single 20mm band, and the shaft tip was slightly blunted too. You can bet my shaft tips are super sharp now.

  • Not unheard of. I shot a very large Cubera in the head with a RIFFE No Ka Oi with slip tip at close range in Panama on my last trip and it shrugged it off like nothing. And not the first time either. Common refrain.

  • Head shots are pretty much all about angel though, no? My buddy Andre doesn't use strong bands. And when I pulled a 55 lb cubera to the surface, still alive but very weak, he shot it right in the head (we didn't want to lose it at that point). Deep penetration. But it was perpendicular to the skull. A glancing blow might not work but straight in? They're hard headed but ……

  • Do you guys think the fish are surviving these failed head shots? Even if you don't get penetration that's still a massive blow to the skull.


    The only gauge I have to guess at this is how many fish (tilapia) we lose when transferring and TRYING to be very gentle, from hatchery to ponds. I've seen the fish get tossed from about 6 feet above the water and you could hear them slap as they landed. We didn't see dead fish that day but over the next 3 days a lot floated up.


    It's something we'll never really know. If he's stunned and lolly gagging around, sharks might nail him. ??

  • Where's that picture of the cubera with the broken off shaft in its face when you need it! I'm amazed by the pics in that thread. You'd think anything showing weakness or with exposed tissue would get scooped up by sharks quickly. I recall a day in Hollywood where myself, a small reef shark, and an undersized black grouper were in a three way race trying to get a mutton that tore off out from under a coral head. In regards to the cuberas, I'm more interested in brain/skull injuries but that's probably too specific and hard to figure out...

    Promontorium Tremendum

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