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On 04-17-01, board member "tomcat" posted this question, which received lots of replies. A number of those replies failed to distinguish between the aggressive species, e.g., titan triggerfish, and other less pugnacious species. Other replies were simply uninformed overall.
Rick Murchison cited an experience of his, and went on to ask for other actual examples of run-ins with triggerfish. In response, I provided these:
"1. I got attacked by a triggerfish,while Divemastering(+)
Author: Dougdive
Date: 04-14-00 11:03
My diver was getting bit and I had to draw the bastard off him him and onto me. Luckily it was small. On another day, my friend( a shop owner), got bit on the head by a big one.Drew blood .Par for the day ,during some seasons(Titan Trigger). I've heard of people getting their nose broken."
2. "I too was attacked and bitten+
Author: Blue Largo
Date: 04-14-00 11:36
by a clown trigger in Malaysia two years ago, I still have scars on my calf hurt like hell too! Bad part was I didn't have my video gear otherwise I think I would have made it on 'When Animals Attack.'"
3."And they are b.....ds! I have a nice scar from my own nasty encounter...(+)
Author: Stef
Date: 08-10-00 05:33
while diving on the GBR in Oct. of '98. I had never seen a Bast....er, Titan Triggerfish before and had no idea of their potential viciousness. A friend and I were diving from the 'Supersport' and the ship's photo pro was video taping the two of us. At about 60', exiting a cavern, I came face to face with a monster-sized Titan. In less than 15 seconds, it gave me a warning rush, followed immediately by an attack to my hairline that resulted in a nickel-sized chunk taken out of my head right down to the skull! It was such a hard hit that it knocked me backwards. This is a big, solid Bast...er, fish. I turned around to see the look of horror on my buddy's face, and the photographer motioning for me to swim toward him, while the attacker continued to go after my fins.
When I reached them, my buddy grabbed my hand and put it to my head where I felt a flap of skin and saw huge clouds of green. Big problem! By the time I surfaced (after a safety stop), blood was pouring down my face and mask and my head felt like it was hit by a Mack truck. The guys on deck were horrified because it looked much worse than it really was.
After an attempt by the lead DM to stitch the flap of skin back over the skull (I didn't resort to alcohol - I wanted to go in for the next dive!), we ended up pouring betadine on it and fashioning a web of butterfly bandages. Now, a couple years later, it has healed nicely but there is still a pretty good scar under the hairline. And let me tell you....not many things strike terror into me when I'm diving, but those...ok, I'll say it...
Bastards!!! are certainly capable."
Here is another very recent one:
" "When Fish Attack" Kwaj style
Author: T.J.
Date: 05-24-01 06:57
It's triggerfish nesting season again. Heard a report from Kwaj of a diver getting a good bite to his face. That had to hurt.
Yesterday it was another day at Speedball to play with the sharks but the sharks didn't want to play. I could barely make out our resident hammerhead among the deep gray surroundings. Not one of the better days at Speedball. Viz was down to about 80ft with less viz in the first 10ft.
I was with Mark A., a AOW student making his first dive at Speedball and my usual buddy Roger and a new guy here, Mark K., tagged along and did their own thing. It was one of those days where a lot of little things where going wrong. Nothing serious, but annoying nonetheless.
Mark and I was doing the "ocean" dive for his AOW, which for here is pretty sleazy. Its basically just another dive but I cover some things like local currents and wildlife, like mentioning its triggerfish nesting season. I tried baiting him on the planned max depth but he didn't bite. I planned a max of 90ft but I went to 100 to see if he would follow. He didn't. Good student.
Near the end of the dive, I thought I saw the distinctive dorsal fins of a large titan triggerfish and stopped dead in my tracks and motioned to Mark A. to stop also. I suspected this titan trigger was one of the fish reported to be aggressive by Roger earlier in the week. We gave him a wide berth. We unfouled the anchors and got them ready to pull up and otherwise just floating along the coral doing our safety stops. I notice Mark K getting close to the triggerfish and the fish would make half hearted passes at him. I was about to swim towards him to warn him but I guess the fish was tired of warning passes and headed straight for Mark K's legs.
At first it seemed like Mark didn't notice the fish biting him. Mark later explained that he thought he might have just grazed some coral but then realized, "Hey, I'm 20ft away from any coral!" and looked down and there is a large (about 2ft long) titan triggerfish munching on his leg and darting back and forth. Even though I was about 30ft away from him, I could clearly hear the "Fucmmpphhh!!!!". It was the fastest I've ever seen Mark K swim yet.
Now the thing I was really worried about was just over the wall ledge, there were about 15 sharks. I remembered how quickly sharks showed up when filming a shark feeding frenzy last year. I didn't see any blood coming from Mark K but I motioned for him to ascend now and get out of the water just in case. As luck would have it, the path Mark chose to make his ascent went directly over our aggravated trigger and he was still pissed. Made another pass at Mark but didn't bite this time. Mark never saw it this time.
We checked out the battle scars on the boat and it wasn't as bad as we thought but it still broke the skin and drew blood. Made a nice circular bite about the size of a half dollar."
Best regards.
DocVikingo
Rick Murchison cited an experience of his, and went on to ask for other actual examples of run-ins with triggerfish. In response, I provided these:
"1. I got attacked by a triggerfish,while Divemastering(+)
Author: Dougdive
Date: 04-14-00 11:03
My diver was getting bit and I had to draw the bastard off him him and onto me. Luckily it was small. On another day, my friend( a shop owner), got bit on the head by a big one.Drew blood .Par for the day ,during some seasons(Titan Trigger). I've heard of people getting their nose broken."
2. "I too was attacked and bitten+
Author: Blue Largo
Date: 04-14-00 11:36
by a clown trigger in Malaysia two years ago, I still have scars on my calf hurt like hell too! Bad part was I didn't have my video gear otherwise I think I would have made it on 'When Animals Attack.'"
3."And they are b.....ds! I have a nice scar from my own nasty encounter...(+)
Author: Stef
Date: 08-10-00 05:33
while diving on the GBR in Oct. of '98. I had never seen a Bast....er, Titan Triggerfish before and had no idea of their potential viciousness. A friend and I were diving from the 'Supersport' and the ship's photo pro was video taping the two of us. At about 60', exiting a cavern, I came face to face with a monster-sized Titan. In less than 15 seconds, it gave me a warning rush, followed immediately by an attack to my hairline that resulted in a nickel-sized chunk taken out of my head right down to the skull! It was such a hard hit that it knocked me backwards. This is a big, solid Bast...er, fish. I turned around to see the look of horror on my buddy's face, and the photographer motioning for me to swim toward him, while the attacker continued to go after my fins.
When I reached them, my buddy grabbed my hand and put it to my head where I felt a flap of skin and saw huge clouds of green. Big problem! By the time I surfaced (after a safety stop), blood was pouring down my face and mask and my head felt like it was hit by a Mack truck. The guys on deck were horrified because it looked much worse than it really was.
After an attempt by the lead DM to stitch the flap of skin back over the skull (I didn't resort to alcohol - I wanted to go in for the next dive!), we ended up pouring betadine on it and fashioning a web of butterfly bandages. Now, a couple years later, it has healed nicely but there is still a pretty good scar under the hairline. And let me tell you....not many things strike terror into me when I'm diving, but those...ok, I'll say it...
Bastards!!! are certainly capable."
Here is another very recent one:
" "When Fish Attack" Kwaj style
Author: T.J.
Date: 05-24-01 06:57
It's triggerfish nesting season again. Heard a report from Kwaj of a diver getting a good bite to his face. That had to hurt.
Yesterday it was another day at Speedball to play with the sharks but the sharks didn't want to play. I could barely make out our resident hammerhead among the deep gray surroundings. Not one of the better days at Speedball. Viz was down to about 80ft with less viz in the first 10ft.
I was with Mark A., a AOW student making his first dive at Speedball and my usual buddy Roger and a new guy here, Mark K., tagged along and did their own thing. It was one of those days where a lot of little things where going wrong. Nothing serious, but annoying nonetheless.
Mark and I was doing the "ocean" dive for his AOW, which for here is pretty sleazy. Its basically just another dive but I cover some things like local currents and wildlife, like mentioning its triggerfish nesting season. I tried baiting him on the planned max depth but he didn't bite. I planned a max of 90ft but I went to 100 to see if he would follow. He didn't. Good student.
Near the end of the dive, I thought I saw the distinctive dorsal fins of a large titan triggerfish and stopped dead in my tracks and motioned to Mark A. to stop also. I suspected this titan trigger was one of the fish reported to be aggressive by Roger earlier in the week. We gave him a wide berth. We unfouled the anchors and got them ready to pull up and otherwise just floating along the coral doing our safety stops. I notice Mark K getting close to the triggerfish and the fish would make half hearted passes at him. I was about to swim towards him to warn him but I guess the fish was tired of warning passes and headed straight for Mark K's legs.
At first it seemed like Mark didn't notice the fish biting him. Mark later explained that he thought he might have just grazed some coral but then realized, "Hey, I'm 20ft away from any coral!" and looked down and there is a large (about 2ft long) titan triggerfish munching on his leg and darting back and forth. Even though I was about 30ft away from him, I could clearly hear the "Fucmmpphhh!!!!". It was the fastest I've ever seen Mark K swim yet.
Now the thing I was really worried about was just over the wall ledge, there were about 15 sharks. I remembered how quickly sharks showed up when filming a shark feeding frenzy last year. I didn't see any blood coming from Mark K but I motioned for him to ascend now and get out of the water just in case. As luck would have it, the path Mark chose to make his ascent went directly over our aggravated trigger and he was still pissed. Made another pass at Mark but didn't bite this time. Mark never saw it this time.
We checked out the battle scars on the boat and it wasn't as bad as we thought but it still broke the skin and drew blood. Made a nice circular bite about the size of a half dollar."
Best regards.
DocVikingo
