Dive Report 2006... Season starts with a BANG... in more ways than
one!!!
Snapper
season opened on April 21st here along the coast and marked the
start of the 2006 fishing year. Some of the Stickmen Freedivers
along with a guest diver would make their first trip into the
gulf a couple days later to avoid
the initial rush of fishermen and boats.
The day would start with a 0400 wake up so that everyone could
meet at the marina by 0600. For
David, the drive to the Marina would take 90
minutes from Gulf Breeze, Florida. Mike would drive over
to Jack's house in south Mobile and
pull the boat with his truck for their 30 minute
trip to Dauphin Island. There is always a lot of excitement surrounding
the first day of fishing and everyone was on time for the
rendezvous at the launch site.
Jack deVilliers was the captain this day and would be diving on
Scuba with one of his customers Bob
Smith. Jack and his wife are sole
proprietors of "Deep South Divers of Alabama" dive shop on
Airport Blvd. in Mobile
Alabama. Mike Wade and David Biron would make up the
rest of the crew and would be freediving.
As we pull up to the first gas rig, Mike and Dave are on the bow getting
ready to tie the boat off... all of a sudden Dave slips and
whacks his foot on the bow rail. He is bent over making
funny noises for about 5 minutes as the
outside of his foot begins to turn purple
and starts to swell.
Mike takes over and throws the rope over the rig in order to secure
the boat as David hurries to put his booties on. Soon Mike
and Dave
are in the water trying to swim against a stiff 3 knot current.
Working the rig structure is very difficult due to the strong current.
David
comes back to the boat with a nice red snapper and is
amazed that a shark which charged the fish did not eat it. After returning
to the water,
he informs Mike that the school of snapper are
holding up current of the rig. If you want a fish ... you were
going to have to work for it!!
David loads his gun for another attempt and "Snap"...
one of the nylon wishbones breaks. With only one
band, he continues to fish.
Meanwhile, Mike is fishing the other side of the structure and
pulls the trigger on a long range
target and misses. The current pushes his
shooting line around a pipe and he spends the next few minutes
diving to untangle it. David
makes a drop in front of the rig and lines up on
another nice snapper, then shoots. The shaft hits the fish
square on the gill plate and is
deflected . The fish swims away. "Looks as
though he needed that second band after all", he's thinking as he ascends.
The current pushes him along while he is looking down and
suddenly BANG... he slams his head into some of the barnacle
covered rig structure. OUCH!!! He
can't believe what has just happened
as he breaks the surface.
The strong current, location of the fish and a fresh head wound
were proving to be a bit too much
this early in the morning so Dave and Mike
return to the boat to regroup. Once onboard David
pulls his wetsuit hood off for Capt. Jack to
see and reveals his bloody skull. Jacks
face cringes at the sight of the ghastly wound. Mike looks
but then turns away. Noticing that the
blood was flowing pretty good, Dave
decides the best thing to do is to keep the wetsuit hood on!
Mike sees blood dripping from the chin
of the hood but keeps quiet so as not to
excite the wounded diver. Plus, nobody was interested in
heading back to shore this early.
On our next stop.. Mike and Dave would pilot the boat and assist the scuba
divers with their gear. We needed a little rest after
fighting
that strong current and David's gash needed some time to stop
bleeding. Jack rolls off the side
of the boat and immediately swims back.
He tells us one of his
integrated weights had just dropped out of the BC.
Mike being a team player, offers Jack the use his freediving
weight
belt. Shortly there after, Jack was on his way again. The scuba
divers returned complaining of the
strong current and poor visibility.
It was on to the next spot, where Mike and Dave would
give freediving another shot .
Shortly into the dive, Dave sees a small cobia with a hook and
line trailing from its
mouth. He tells Mike to turn on his cobia radar.
Sure enough... David watches Mike drop down, line up a shot and Whack...
perfect shot on a Huge Cobia. David watches in amazement as
the fish doesn't even twitch. Mike boats the fish and
removes his spear at which time the fish wakes
up and tries to swim its way out of the
cooler. Hint... Never ever put a live 60 lb. Cobia in your
boat. It was hilarious watching Mike
try to hold the 120 qt. cooler lid down...
especially when only half the fish would fit into it.
The next spot was again a quick little freedive to check the
area. Once again we found some
Cobia. Mike and Dave drop down... line up on a
stud fish and shoot almost simultaneously. This time
it was David's turn to fight the fish and he
would have his hands full with another
large Cobia. The fish was strong and the shot was barely
holding so Dave asked for another
gun when he got to the boat and Bob was quick to
oblige. David placed another shot which went completely
through the fish's head and this only
seemed to anger the fish. It is amazing how
strong these cobia are. Ten more minutes of fighting and
the fish was on the boat. It looked
like the twin of the one Mike had in the cooler.
Both fish would later weigh in at 60 lbs. Sweeet!!!
Our final stop was a large gas rig in fairly shallow
water. Jack and Bob would try once again to
boat a fish. David also jumped in for a
look and Mike stayed with the boat because Jack was using his
weight belt. Bob brought back a nice
cobia and Jack had a small snapper.
David missed his shot at another
cobia and brought back another fish story.
By now it was noon and Jack had to return to work by 2 p.m.
so we all headed back to the Marina.
After a short stop by Jack's dive shop to park the boat, David
and Mike would make a visit to see a
dear friend and fellow Stickman, Dr. Ashton
Blessey, MD. The good doctor patched up David's skull and
sent him on his way.
Thunderstorms had rolled in by this time. Mike and David
get
drenched in a downpour as they run across the parking lot to
their vehicles after leaving the
clinic to head home. It continued to rain
well into the night stalling efforts to clean fish and gear but
by the following morning all had
been accomplished.
Though the boat trip was rather short... it was jam packed full
of excitement and a great way to
start the 2006 spearfishing season.
Here's a detailed pictorial of our excursion, please enjoy:
http://www.flounderwear.com/wound.html
Diving Safer,
David Biron
Mike Wade