West Beach Paddlewheeler 7-13-6 Dive Report

This is mainly just a dive where we filled an icechest full of flounder



Mikey Paul and I headed out to the West Beach Paddlewheeler and arrived about 8:30PM(about an hour later than planned). We geared up and headed into the surf, which was running at shin high, with occasional knee high breakers. The waves didn't have alot of push and there was much sidecurrent, nor surge. We found the wreck without incident and tied off near the paddlewheel axel. Mikey tagged the first fish before we even reached the wreck, basically, just the beginning of a very lucritive night in the water. After hooking the flag, we both immediately started stacking flounder on our poles, some of the fish were very nicely sized, while others were the typical 14"ers you see plenty of... Max depth hit was 15' and we ended up diving for 53 minutes. I signalled him to surface and counted my fish, I had 12, Mikey had 11. We ended up calling the dive because we had as many fish as we wanted to clean and they were starting to get heavy from dragging them up and down the wreck, both of us still had half a tank. We also spotted a few very large sheepshead, but let them alone as the area was covered in our goal - flounder. Visibility was 5-15' and water temperatures shown as 86F. We had a great dive and brought home a total of 23 fish, while leaving plenty more to get bigger for next time!





Looking forward to more dives this weekend.

How are the jellies? Is a rash suit needed on the beach yet? I may catch up with you Sat. evening

This past Saturday, I got hit by a few jellies diving out near Ft Morgan. I wasn't wearing any kind of suit, or even a Tshirt.

I haven't seen any real threat from the jellies in the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area yet. Dove nothing but trunks last night again and no problems

The water looked great down at the pass today. I was hanging off the side off the side of Summer Breeze in that sun and heat dreaming I was out there. It didn't
t look like much surf was hitting the rocks at all but was full of fisherman and boats along with some T-backs

Hopefully the surf will stay down and water clarity up for the weekend

Ahh, these are the fish you told us about this lats weekend. I need to see about doing something like that. Being I only have one-arm, I wonder how that would work. Any thoughts?

Michael

Nice haul!

mwhities:

Ahh, these are the fish you told us about this lats weekend. I need to see about doing something like that. Being I only have one-arm, I wonder how that would work. Any thoughts?

Michael

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Use the pole as a gig, don't worry about the band at all. Get a swivel tip with two wings, not a paralyzer, and just stack fish on the pole. I've stacked them 8 deep before without stringing them Quite a haul!

The pole that you have, I wouldn't really be able to use that. With 8 fish on there, I know I wouldn't be able to at all.

My dive buddy better watch out!!!!

Michael

For flounder you don't really need a rubber band, just stob them and stack them as Mat says. I would think the problem you would have is in the filleting. And in the eating. A plate of flounder requires a fork in each hand.

mwhities:

The pole that you have, I wouldn't really be able to use that. With 8 fish on there, I know I wouldn't be able to at all.

My dive buddy better watch out!!!!

Michael

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