Dauphin
Island, Alabama Spearfishing - July 27, 2005
by Mike Wade
I got the invite from my long time friend, Rick Pinegar
and his daughter
Ginny, to go spearfishing yesterday.
All I needed was some gas money.
My trick to go
spearing when I want is to make sure my
costs are
covered. I do this by simply going out and
mowing a couple of
yards, that way no one can gripe about
how much I spend on my
hobby. Yesterday, I just wanted
to go do one yard
'cause basically I was feeling lazy
and would rather be
playing on my XBOX in this 95 degree
heat. Anyway, I
ended up doing five. So much for being
lazy. Now I'm in
good shape for a couple of trips.
Since it was mid week
we weren't in a rush to beat the
boats out of the
launch so we met up at 0800. The seas
were less than 2' and
needless to say, we had an easy run
from one spot to
another. We hit so many different places,
I can only summarize
with this accounting, which means
this story may be short.
Since Rick and Ginny
were SCUBA diving, I was the only
freediver on the boat
and just like Ashton, they like
for me to go in first and give a
visibility report.
I usually give the
report after I've speared the first
fish as a rule. After all, I
feel like a guinea pig
sometimes when the
water is green and murky, as was the
case at our first stop, green from
top to bottom with
no more than 4 foot
vis. All I saw here were plenty
of big sheepshead in silhouette
but since I don't care
for them, I passed on
taking any. I didn't want to start
filling our cooler with these fish
when I know the
next stop may produce
a higher sought after species,
and the wait was worth it.
The next stop was in
70' fsw and there was a warm murk
layer for the first 15
feet, then it cooled and cleared
to 20-25 feet all the way to the
bottom. After I had
shot a 15 lb. red
snapper, I gave the "looks good" sign
and they both began to suit
up. Meanwhile, I'm dragging
more fish to the boat
for them to deck hand with. I laughed
to myself when on the
third fish, I overheard Ginny saying
"My Goodness!!!" in
what was an aggravated tone of voice,
as I gave the fish on
signal. I got
out and took a breather while they made their dive.
After a while they surface and
Rick is toting a 20 lb.
anchor complete with
rope. "Rick, you are definitely
the salvage diver", I smiled as I
relieved him of his
weight. Ginny
comes up with a goody bag full of shells
and sand dollars. "Where's
the fish?" I asked looking
at Rick. "Right
here" and he pulls up his fish clip
with a couple of flounders on
it. "Alrighty then", I
exclaim.
Both of them are excited about seeing a hammerhead on
the dive.
Earlier in the day, Ginny had expressed a
desire to see a shark. "I've
never seen a shark while
diving", she
said. "I wish I could see one". I replied,
"Be careful what you wish for".
We hit another spot
and don't have much luck with the
snapper but the place
was alive with fish like blues,
jack crevalle, hard tails,
barracuda, menhaden and bar
jacks etc. Rick
and Ginny freedive with me for a while.
I dive down to the bottom and
corner a red snapper,
take a shot and the
shaft goes right through and then
comes right back out. My
floppers don't open and I
ice pick him.
This will be the third time I've had to
replace the rubber that holds the
wings open. I'm not
one for change but I'm
seriously thinking about switching
spear tips. Rick and Ginny
make a dive and once again
Rick comes up with
some booty. This time it's a gaff
some poor fisherman has dropped
overboard. Ginny
comes up with more
shells. In one shell was the smallest
octopus I have ever seen. It
was no bigger than pencil
eraser.
Our last dive of the
day was on a deeper rig, around
110' fsw. It was
the middle rig, one of three, that we
call the "three sisters". I get in
and shoot a fish that
I have been curious
about for a long time but every time
I get home and try to look it up
in my fish dictionary I
can't recall the exact
markings or outline. It's one of
those fish you see all the time
but never really know what
it is. Like with all
the bait fish, I couldn't come close
to naming them all. Anyway, I
throw it on the boat and
immediately take a
picture. Rick
gets in to make a dive while I continue to freedive
around the rig.
The current is coming in now and it is
getting
stronger. I'm diving deeper and deeper as the day
progresses. By
now I'm making 70-80' drops and am getting
concerned about
shallow water blackout. I drop down on
my last dive of the
day to around 80'. I'm looking at a
school of amberjack to
my left, an oncoming school of
big jack crevalle in
front of me and below me to my right
I see a school of big
king mackerel, one of which looked
to be over 50
lbs. I level off and try to intersect with
the big king and
kicking hard. Knowing that I may be pushing
it, I take a shot and
miss (probably just as well) because
I needed to get back to the
surface pronto. I prayed that
if I made it up, I'd
call it a day. I did and I did. I
almost saw stars toward the end of
that dive. This is the
only regret that I
have when I get invited to go with tank
divers because there's
no one to watch my back.
Before long Rick comes
up with an amberjack and we head
back in arriving at
the dock around 5:00 p.m.
I get to the house and
weigh my fish. The mystery fish
weighs 7 lbs. I fillet
it and feed half of it to my mutts
to see if they like it and they
do. They'll turn their noses
up to some fish I
bring home. Ironically, they won't eat
cobia. I later looked it up
in my book of fishes and it
turns out to be a
bermuda chub. According to my book it
is edible but mushy and strong
flavored. With that I went
to the fridge and got
out the other fillet and fed it to
Foxy and Georgia. They
lapped it up like it was red snapper,
their favorite.
They love it when I go spearfishing.
Another good day in the
books. Here is some of the better
pictures. http://www.flounderwear.com/dias.html