The Weather Gods are Smiling
By David Biron
The Gulf weather forecast was calling for 2 ft. seas and winds from
the SE at 10 knots. When Mike Wade and I read a forecast like
that, it sounds the spearfishing dinner bell. Sure, we've braved
rough seas in the past and will continue to do so, which is why there
is so much excitement surrounding a day with a favorable forecast. The
plans were set in short order just 12 hours before we were to depart. A
canceled appointment here and a phone call there and we were set. We
were to meet at the Dauphin Island boat ramp at 0730 and speed out into
the gulf at 30+ mph on calm seas! Nothing builds excitement like
fishing in the middle of the week on calm seas!!
I woke at 0430 and began the long drive at 0500 with a hot cup of
coffee in my hand. Forty Five minutes later I was at the Marina hooking
up the boat for the 1.5 hr tow to Dauphin Island. The boat didn't want
to move and seemed stuck. I walked around to make sure I hadn't
forgotten anything when I noticed one of the tires on the right side was
flat. I didn't get up this early to call the day on a flat trailer
tire. What complicated the matter was that my spare was flat also. It
was a new tire that had lost air for some reason and I hadn't found the
opportunity to fill it. The decision was made to tow the boat 2 miles
up the street to a gas station where I could fill the spare and change
tires on the trailer. When I got the the gas station... a police
officer pulled in behind me and told me I had a "flat". I thanked him
for notifying me and looked down to see the once flat tire was now a
heap of twisted smoking rubber. We're not going to be patching that
tire! I unbolted the flat spare and attempted to fill it with air,
only to find out the air compressor at the gas station was shot! There
was a 24 hr. Wal Mart across the street which meant I would have to
disconnect the boat trailer and drive the 1/4 mile to the Wal Mart gas
station. Ten minutes later I was filling the spare tire with air and
noticed some bubbles around the tire rim. Now I knew how the tire
became flat in the first place. I dropped the tire on the ground a
couple times hoping to seat it. Still... I knew I should have someone
leak check the tire and get a new tire mounted in place of the one which
was now destroyed. This meant I would have to wait until 7 am when the
automotive department in Wal Mart opened. I could see the beautiful
fishing day slipping away and knew I had to call Mike to let him know
what was going on.
The spare tire passed the leak check , however Wal Mart was out of
15" trailer tires so I made the decision to "go for it" and make the 1.5
hr. tow without a spare! No one gets 2 flats in one day... do they? I
would surely be tempting fate because of the debris which hurricane
Ivan had strewn about. When I informed my buddy Mike about what was
happening he said " be safe and don't worry if you can't make it". What
a great guy. The day prior his friend, Norborne had informed him that
the Marine Resource Police were checking licenses at the boat launch.
Fishing licenses in Alabama expire on Sept. 30 which is 1 month before
the end of snapper season. If you want to finish the 04 fishing
season, you have to buy an 05 license! Pretty cool huh. Because
neither Mike or I had purchased an 05 fishing license ... he was going
to take care of the administrative details while I was making my way to
his location.
I finally arrived at the boat ramp at 0915 and we quickly loaded
our gear and launched the boat. We lost about 2 hours on the front of
the day and still had great weather ahead. We will hunt until the sun
goes down I thought ... Mike and I found our spirits soaring as we
motored out of the bay to explore the gulf. Mike had been given GPS
coordinates of a gas rig 35 miles offshore. This would be our first
stop... or shall I say... scheduled stop! Two miles away with the rig
in sight we noticed a palm tree floating upside down and could not
resist the temptation to explore! Mike was quickly in the water and
the flotsam would give us both the opportunity to dress out prior to
reaching the gas rig. A short time later... he was onboard and reported
seeing some juvenile tile fish . Next thing you know we are tying the
boat up to the gas rig in 120 ft. water.
The water was a little murky for the first 15 ft. and then opened
up into a wonderful cobalt blue with about 40 ft. visibility.
Awesome... we hadn't dived in water this blue since May. There was one
other boat tied up near us with line fishermen onboard. I decided to
fish on the up current side of the rig to stay out of their way. On my
first drop to 55 ft. I was greeted by a small school of amberjack. The
fish seemed to be a good size so I took a shot and hit the larger fish
of the bunch. It was all I could to to keep the fish away from the rig
structure and make the surface to breath. Once on the surface with the
fish now swimming away from the rig, I knew I would boat the fish so
long as it wasn't attacked by a larger predator. I pulled the fish to
within 30 ft. of the surface and swam the rest of the way to the boat.
When you fish in Gulf ... you quickly learn that carrying a fish to
the boat by the gills is not such a good idea, unless of course your
name is Manny Puig and you are trying to hand feed bull sharks!! Mike
would later ask me " did you see that bull shark following your
amberjack?" No, I replied....... then I thought... I'm glad he is the
one seeing the sharks today. On our previous trip, I was the only
diver who had seen sharks and even had one attack me! The motto on our
boat is "out of sight.... almost out of mind". We are comfortable
diving with the sharks and view them as an active and necessary part of
the gulf ecosystem. Their beauty is tempered by the fact they can at
times be aggressive toward divers. When Sharks are sighted... they are
observed closely. Most of the time they swim at your speared fish.
Sometimes they eat and sometimes they don't. If they are not eating we
will usually continue to fish in the area. A shark behaving in an
aggressive manner or very low vis water with sharks present will likely
prompt a change of dive location. Whenever a diver notices a large
predator, it is customary to inform your diving partner so they can
maintain vigilance while continuing the hunt. For a while there I would
come up on almost every dive and tell Mike... "Hey I just saw a large
bull" or "A large bull just went for my fish" or even "A big bull just
came at me!!" It got to the point that Mike didn't even want to hear
the word S H A R K . He told me to just give him a signal ...
like open and close my hand! Mike is a funny guy and knows the bull
as well as anyone. He's fed his share of bull sharks.... and even fed
one a 30 lb. amberjack and a world record snapper all in the same day.
So far so good... we both have our limit of (1) amberjack and they
are 25 - 30 lb. class fish. We decide to head north toward shore and
stop at a rig 8 miles away in slightly shallower water 110 ft. The
visibility was much the same as the last rig and the fish were hovering
in the 75 ft. range. Due to the fact the amberjack had made a noodle of
my 9/32 hardened steel shaft... I would be using a backup gun. A
couple of missed opportunities and Mike was too changing to his backup
gun. We were diving deep (65-75 ft.) and those missed opportunities
were beginning to take their toll. My next dive found me drifting past
60 ft. looking toward the dark blue depths... all of a sudden I see a
couple of red snapper coming toward me from below... they are curious
and continue my way... one snapper in particular, a very large fish
continues toward me and begins to swim right underneath me... I remained
very still and let him pass underneath. As the fish passed, my
motionless body make him even more curious... I slowly turned to my
right, the fish slowly turned to its left and viola... I'm looking point
blank (8-10 ft.) to a broadside shot on a 20+ lb. red snapper. Thwack...
as I squeezed the trigger, I saw the 5/16 shaft with ice pick tip enter
the fish's gill plate. Wow! A perfect head shot. I began the long swim
up all the while pulling on the fish to keep it from reaching the rig
structure! About 30 ft. from the surface my line goes limp and the fish
disappears. I couldn't believe what had just happened! Did the fish
pull off? Nah... it couldn't have, I saw the spear go through its head!
Maybe the ice pick tip didn't toggle properly? At the surface I
began to retrieve my spear and noticed it felt pretty light. There is
my answer... the fish must have been able to rub against a rig leg and
parted my shooting line! It was the first and last time I will hunt
with anything other than STEEL CABLE!!!!! Total cost of spear and tip
($150)... look on my face when big snapper swam away PRICELESS!! I
returned to the boat with my horror story only to find my dive partner,
Mike back on the boat in an agitated state with nothing good to say
about his "backup" gun! Both Mike and I were now in the middle of the
"EQUIPMENT DOLL DRUMS". We would desperately try to fight our way out
and fill the coolers with fish!
Our third stop would be a small gas rig 8 miles closer to home in
95 ft. of water. The visibility was decreasing along with the waters
depth. Conditions at this spot were quite huntable with a cloudy
(10 ft. vis) layer for the first 20 ft. and then 25 - 30 ft. visibility
under the surface layer. The fish remained at usual 60 - 70 ft depth.
Having bent my first spear and lost the second, I found myself now
diving with a 90 cm picasso as a backup. The gun has a modified 2 band
muzzle and shoots a 7 mm shaft. The main problem was that it was rigged
with only 1 wrap of line because the chinsey line release on the gun
doesn't accommodate 2 wraps very well and the second wrap will
constantly fall off. With only 1 wrap of line I would have to get
within 10 ft. of the fish to have a chance. Mike decided to give his
primary gun a second chance at catching fish after robbing a band from
his backup. He was first in the water and had a nice snapper on the
line shortly thereafter. I made a couple dives in the same vicinity and
saw the fish around 70 ft. I was able to coax the fish up a few ft. (10)
but they were very cautious never getting closer than 15-20 ft. In the
blue water it can be difficult to judge distance and I made a few shots
only to watch my spear fall short. Mike and I were still working very
hard for our opportunities. The longer we stayed at one location, the
deeper we would have to dive to get close to the fish. Mike boated a
very nice king mackerel which officially marked the end of his "aiming
slump". He had his groove on once again. I was becoming exhausted
with the deep diving and suggested we move once again to a shallower rig.
We arrived at our second to last dive spot the same time as another
boat was trying to hook up. The line fishermen on the other boat were
very cordial and quite happy to share the spot with us. It seemed as
though every time we would surface ... they would ask us " did you see
anything?" Mike, the southern gentlemen that he is, would always
oblige to the request and provide a brief fish report.
The depth had now decreased to 55 ft. and the visibility on top was 5-6
ft. at best. We were going to give it a try as long as we could see the
end of our spear tip. This was barely possible with the 90 cm picasso so
I continued to use the smaller gun. The first dive down I was amazed
that the visibility opened up below 25 ft. and the visibility was 20 ft.
Awesome!!! We can see ... and the fish have no place to run because we
can also make the 55 ft. bottom! My first dive ended very quickly by
shooting a nice 10 lb. mangrove snapper. As soon as the fish was hit
an 8 ft. bull shark bolted toward the fish... it immediately turned and
swam toward me... circled me and went back toward the fish. I thought
for sure the fish was a goner and much to my surprise the shark passed
the fish by. The Shark Gods are smiling and so am I! As I swam the
fish to the boat, I passed Mike in the water and gave him a heads up
about our friend. Mike felt good that the shark did not eat and
continued to dive. He followed my snapper with one of his own and I was
quickly back in the water for another. After a long and arduous day,
Mike and I found ourselves in spearfishing Heaven. There were loads of
fish, the sharks had eaten and we didn't have to dive any deeper than
55 ft. Man this was great! By the time it was all said and done Mike
had his limit of (4) red snapper and I had boated a mangrove and a red
as well as a nice sheepshead and a small trigger fish. The shark which
made a run at my first snapper, did the same to my second and never took
a bite! I was so happy about this area that I had to dive on one more
"shallow" rig as the sun was beginning to set.
Once at our final diving spot, I put away the small picasso and
reloaded the Daryl Wong 50" hybrid with a backup spear. I hadn't had
much luck with that particular spear but what the heck. Mike had his
limit of amberjack, red snapper and a nice king mackerel. He was also
starting to feel the effects of all the deep diving we did and was
contented to sit this one out. The conditions were much the same as the
last shallow rig with a thick murky layer to 25 ft. and clear 20 ft.
visibility from there on down to 50 ft. Fish were swimming everywhere
and it wasn't long before I spotted a nice gag grouper near the bottom
of the rig structure. I swam the fish to the boat and Mike was
pleasantly surprised. He had forgotten all about the grouper. Grouper
like the bottom and on the deep rigs we usually dive they are rarely if
ever seen. I really wanted a couple more red snapper and continued to
dive. We had lost most of our frozen fish due to hurricane Ivan and I
was trying to restock the freezer before the close of snapper season on
Oct. 31. Not long after I had entered the water for a second time, I
shot a nice red snapper. I took a shot diving from inside the rig
structure and the fish quickly tangled the spear near the bottom of the
rig at 45 ft. I would spend the remaining 40 minutes of daylight diving
repeatedly to 45 ft. to try and untangle the spear. While down there I
was cursing myself for taking such a bad shot, as I saw more grouper,
snapper and trigger fish swim by to see what was going on!! Arrrgh!!!
It was a good holding shot on the fish but a bad shot due to the
fish's close proximity to the rig. I should never have been on the
inside of the rig. When shooting line becomes stuck on barnacles it can
be near impossible to release. Finally in a desperate attempt to save
my spear and possibly the fish, I decide to make one last dive down and
cut the shooting line. Lucky for me the spear had been rigged with
Dynema and my dive knife was easily up to the task. I dived down and
cut the spear free, then I started hacking the line until I had the fish
free as well. Right then I saw a 5 ft. bull shark swim underneath me.
I was wondering how long it would take before this bleeding - dying -
fish would attract the big guys. I held the fish tight in my hand and
began the ascent to the surface when another larger bull went swimming
by. After all I had been through in the past 40 min. I was ready to do
a "Manny" and hand feed the shark if it came right down to it. I wasn't
going to let go of the fish and was glad to be leaving the water.
Mike and I enjoyed the sunset as we motored back to the boat ramp
stopping often to take some photographs. We were returning home safely
after a long hard day of diving the Gulf of Mexico waters. Somehow we
managed the obstacles of the day and both took home a nice cooler full
of fish.
Life is Good!