Not the puka variety unfortunately. Went for a dive down the coast from makara with a new diver to show him the way of the tarakihi cull. Towards the end of the dive I headed out to my usual spot to have a look for crays. Inside the cave I kept hearing loud grunting noises and after a while found a medium sized BSG in a deep crack. Pretty unusual to see one down this way. Unfortunately I scared the hell out of him trying to pull a cray out just next to him, he took off but I could still hear the grunting so he couldn't have gone far. Here's hoping he's made that cave his home for a while.

I've caught a few pup groper at Makara in winter in less han 20 metres, on line, not spear!

They seem to have a pretty broad depth range - I have seen them in shallow water heaps, especially at the Kings

How big is your pet one RQ? I'm keen to poke a camera at one but so far I've only found 2-3kg jobbies. They seem really shy at this size and getting them to come out into the light has proved problematic...

SBG have been found as far south as Jackson's Bay I believe

TheSnapperWhisperer wrote: Yeah they are common in shallows.  I saw my pet one in Oke Bay again last weekend.  Has been there a few years now. Saw two of them in there once.  I never heard of s SBG being that far south, Dave.  Sure it was not another related groper?

Flick me the GPS marks and I will go and feed him for you

Convict groper are deep water species. Sounds like a BSG

Not often tho do we target crays unless its pretty dead and or the viz is sheit.

They get up to 80-100kg I believe, but the biggest I have seen around NZ (rather than Kermadecs) was about 30 kg at the Three Kings. Average on mainland I would say would be 1-5kg

I've seen them at Deepwater Cove and Mahinepua before. The Deepwater Cove one seemed to be free swimming, but the Mahinepua one was in a cave. Should be easy enough to film though as he came out to see what I was up to.