Lazy Days of Diving
Dauphin Island, Alabama
October 26, 2004
As the snapper season winds down,
David Biron
and myself decided to take
advantage of yet
another beautiful day on the
gulf as the forecast
called for 2 foot seas or
less. Perfect!
The day goes off without a hitch as we
get
started at 0630 just as
planned. A short
trip to the service station to
gas up
the
boat and fill the coolers with
ice and we
are happily on our way to
Dauphin
Island.
Today would be different. We
would not be
motoring to deep water, instead
we are going
to intentionally dive the shallow rigs
we normally
pass up to get to the blue
water. Even if the
water looks dirty we are going
to give it our
best effort.
We pass the tide line on the way out
and the
water changes color... a good
sign.
The first spot looked good as we
suited up.
David encouraged me to go in
first, and I promptly
complied. "What kind of
visibility do you want?"
I asked David. "Enough to
see the end of my gun",
came his reply and that was
about all we had. Not
as good as I like, so we
relocated to the next rig
to the west and the water got a
little clearer. We
both put a couple of nice red
snappers
on the boat
and I unloaded my gun on a
spanish mackerel before
getting back into the boat.
Our second spot was more productive as
I continued to
focus on my limit of red
snapper and had it filled by
10:18 a.m. Not a bad
start. David hunted snapper
intermittently and shot a nice
gag grouper while I was
finishing off my limit of red
snapper. We also boated
a couple of triggerfish.
I spot
a cobia but it is inside
the rig and if I were to shoot
it, I'd be looking at major
entanglement so I try to wait
for it to come outside
to play which it does
not. We dive here for a little
while longer and then decide to
go somewhere else.
Our third rig was a charm and in less
than 50' fsw.
Basically, we had it covered
from top to bottom and
fish were everywhere. We
saw grouper, red fish, sheepshead,
triggerfish, blue fish, red snapper,
bonito and mangrove snapper all
on this one spot.
Having shot my limit of red snapper,
David had the place
to himself and he made the best
of it, taking his time
and selectively picking out the
largest of the stock.
In the meantime, I dived to the
bottom and got a grouper
of my own, breaking a band on
my gun in the process. David
provides a spare and I'm back
in action. I make a couple
of more dives and come up with
two beautiful triggerfish.
A big bull shark swims up to
take a look and meandered
on back down. Thank you!
By now I was running out of things to
shoot with my
gun and didn't want to rape the
place so I opted to
trade it for my underwater
camera. I swam down and took
some pictures of a couple of
red snapper, triggerfish
and grouper. I was having
a blast!
As much as I hated to leave this place
we opted to move
on in search of some more
grouper.
Our next couple of spots were in 60'
fsw and ironically
did not hold that much
fish. I'm always surprised how
when you move just a mile away
the fish population changes.
We dive hard but can't find any
legal
grouper.
We stop back by a place we call the
triple rig on the way
back in. The water was
murky on top and had about 20' of
vis sandwiched between a murky
bottom. Nothing here but blue fish and spades.
About 4:00 p.m. we head back in with
two coolers of fish.
I can't think of a better way
to spend
a Tuesday.
Mike Wade
Stickmen Freedivers
Mobile, Alabama