It’s six fifteen in the morning; dawn now sweeps gently across a chain of reefs stretching Northeast toward Wreck Hill in Somerset. Ten yards from the boat a turtle breaks the ocean surface, letting out a wet sneeze as it takes in a new breath before diving back down and disappearing into the deep. It’s a good omen for the superstitious, a signal to drop anchor.

“This is rockfish country.”

At least it might be. Older Bermudian fishermen, the salty sea-dog types, recall days when ‘you used to be able to walk across their backs’ — when the entirety of the Bermuda platform was rockfish country — but after years of heavy fishing those heady days are long gone.

Today, one is lucky to catch a shadow. A morning spent swimming the reef boundaries, diving every so often to examine a promising hole or outcropping, may turn up little more than a flashing tail fin.

Black groupers — commonly known as rockfish — are the prize quarry for spear fishing enthusiasts, not just because of their taste and the challenge killing one presents, but because the fish has grown increasingly difficult to find in recent decades.

Years of global exploitation and the species’ relatively slow reproduction rate means the reef behemoth is classified as near-threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List.

In spite of this, spear fishing now is more popular than it has ever been. While one might assume this could lead to further exploitation of rockfish, the truth, enthusiasts say, is quite the opposite.

Locally, reported landings of rockfish by commercial fisherman “have increased dramatically over the past 12 years”, according to the Department of Environmental Protection, which provided catch data for all groupers dating back to 1975, when official records began.

In the 39 years since, more than a million pounds of rockfish are reported to have been hauled out of local waters — 1,187,420lbs, to be exact — averaging 3,253lbs per year. Assuming an average weight of 41lbs per fish, that figure could represent around 30,000 individuals.

However the data is dependant on a trait fishermen are rarely known for when it comes to the size of their catch: honesty.

The self-reporting system trades on the presumption every commercial and recreational fisherman is law-abiding and upfront in their catch reports. The challenge, admitted a Department spokeswoman, is confirming those claims. “Because fish are landed all over the Island it is difficult to validate the catches,” she said.

Beyond the reported figures — which many accept as an under-representation of a much larger total — fishermen’s tales are the only evidence we have of what Bermuda’s waters used to look like in respect of grouper populations.

But regardless of the data’s accuracy, the disparity between the numbers of groupers observed today, compared to the stories told 50 years ago is a stark one. Indeed, the Department has admitted grouper numbers appear “well below” the first-hand accounts reported in the 1950s and 60s.

With such a high-demand product in short supply, there exists an incentive for commercial fishermen, and buyers, to circumvent the law. Loopholes within the law have already been exploited, according to the Department, when fishermen began targeting black groupers in a way that would enable them to exceed the daily bag limit by leaving unattended fixed weighted lines.

“The Department quickly moved to amend the Fisheries Regulations to include these fixed lines in the definition of prohibited Fixed Fishing Gear,” said the spokeswoman, adding that “discussions regarding additional management measures are underway.”

Within the spear fishing community, one well-known restaurateur, and second-to-none spear fisher, is regularly singled out for flouting the daily bag limit of one fish per boat per day. Others have observed even more calloused practices, including trolling through known and protected grouper aggregate sites during spawning season. The Department of Environmental Protection has heard similar claims.

“We sometimes receive anecdotal reports of fishermen exceeding the daily bag limit of one black grouper per boat per day after the fact,” said the Department spokeswoman. “However, in order for any action to be taken, the fisheries wardens need to be notified immediately when illegal activities occur.”

While illegal fishing has certainly contributed to the grouper’s decline, a much more impactful blow was dealt to local fish stocks, including groupers, in 1942 with the construction of the US base and airport in Castle Harbour, St George’s. With the airport’s construction came the destruction of mangroves and seagrass meadows, which served as nurseries for juvenile fish.

More recent contributors to the decline of groupers have been the use of fishpots in spawning aggregation sites before they were protected in the 1970s, said the spokeswoman. Reported landing data illustrates the difference the fish pot ban made. In the 15 years before the 1990 fish pot ban, reported landings were averaging 42,296lbs per year. Between 1990 and 1999, reported landings dropped to an average of 9,356lbs per year, but skyrocketed thereafter. Between 2000 and 2012, 417,200lbs of rockfish were reportedly landed, averaging 34,766lbs landed per year for twelve years.

“Although the black grouper seems to have recovered well in response to management measures,” said the spokeswoman, “the way in which some groupers reproduce means that once their populations are below a certain level, their ability to recover is severely impaired.”

Among the management measures is a tag and release project begun in 2008 at an eastern aggregation site which was extended to a western aggregation site last year.

Protection of the sites, normally closed to fishing between May 1 and August 31, has now been extended through to November after research showed black groupers spawning later into the year than the red hind, which the closure of aggregate sites was originally intended to protect.

The Department of Environmental Protection hopes to expand the project in coming years, including “monitoring of tagged fish between spawning periods to locate their home reefs and assess the area of the platform from which fish are drawn to the aggregation sites, and monitoring of the fish near their home reefs to assess the extent of the typical home range” for rockfish.

The Department also has further plans to curb illegal fishing. Fishermen will be required to tag rockfish at capture, while restaurants will soon be required to keep records of fish purchased, including who supplied the fish, their license, the fish’s tag number, and a date for inspection by fisheries staff.

The Department, as well as the spear fishing community, hope is that such measures will remove the market for illegally caught fish.

But while the rockfish is far rarer today than it was in decades past, one spear fishing enthusiast is optimistic about their future.

“Without a doubt, I’m seeing more rockfish these days than when I first started spear fishing,” said Spencer Wood. While he credits the protective measures taken to ensure the future of the species, he hopes the growing popularity of spear fishing — “undoubtedly the most sustainable form of fishing there is” — will bring with it a change in attitude toward the sport’s most exalted prize.

Underwater, surrounded by reef and limited by lung capacity, the one advantage a man armed with a spear has over fish is intelligence, and even then they can make us look like fools.

But more than levelling the playing field, said Mr Wood, the sport breeds respect, reverence even, for a species of fish more and more residents are coming to revere instead of exploit.

“You could never bring a second rockfish on a boat with other serious spear fishers,” said Mr Wood. “That is extremely frowned upon. The bag limit is the bag limit. It’s bad karma.”