search and recover...turns hunting...turns photo safari

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keezdiver

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after our outing on saturday with friends, jess had to abandon a shaft lodged in the reef. i guess she felt getting to the surface with air to breath was more important than not losing a shaft....pfft...how reckless!!

so sunday morning we slept in a bit, then lazily got the boat ready for a trip out of the south end of marathon. the boat was still on the trailor from the holidays (and windy weather) so we just drove down and launched at the other end of town. that saved a 12mi run by water from our canal. we headed out for the S&R mission into some choppy water and we were less than thrilled with the vis conditions. but since she said the shaft was RIGHT on the ledge, i figured we could find it anyway.

got anchored up and hit the water, got to the ledge and started working our way west towards the shafts resting place. on the way jess tagged a nice hogfish and shortly after that we found the lost shaft. took a minute, but i wrestled it out and we continued on our way. we saw several blacks on the ledge but with only about 25ft of vis it was hard to get any shots. we worked our way shallower (where the grouper hoardes were the day before) and quickly were surrounded by a handfull of grouper. with the low vis it was hard to determine size, and we both passed on several that were probably legal. we also had about 10 big 18-24" mangos circling, but again, passed on the shots (not our fav food fish).
i ended up spotting what i thought was a good sized grouper, and pulled the trigger. however with the vis playing tricks on me, i realized as i got closer that it probably WOULDN'T make the 24" cut...i was pissed at myself for a second. but then as the silt cleared a bit more, i realized...it was a Red Grouper! and would easily make the 20" mark. made me glad i didn't shoot any of the other grouper, they were likely deceivingly small. the Red ended up going 22" or so i think...perfect eating. and NOT a normal deep reef fish around here.

we pulled anchor and headed inshore a bit, since the top of the reef seemed cleaner on the trip out. decided to hit a few shallow 25-35ft patches that i know well but don't hit often due to distance from home.
Dive 2 was on a nice ledge in 25ft that i like. it's a great place for sightseeing and occasionally pick up a grouper in a particular crack. ended up seeing about a dozen baby blacks...VERY cool...a jewfish...nurse shark and lots of other pretty fish. even a few bugs, but didn't have gear. was a very nice relaxed dive.

moved a 1/2 mile west to Dive Site 3 and dove a coral garden that i LOVE. lots of big coral heads, very distinct 3ft ledge ending in sand. this site is ALWAYS got gags on it, only place i know in the keys that CONSISTENTLY has gags...usually small...but still nice to see. and there are usually legal blacks or reds hanging around, along with the typical mangos, muttons and hogs.
since it was so shallow and the vis was so nice, i suggested jess trade the gun for the camera and have some fun. so she had fun snapping pics while i dove. got some cool shots of some small grouper, a nice male hog and then some action shots of me shooting a nice 15lb black.

had to work for the black though. i had seen a couple decent ones swimming around, but couldn't get the shots (actually missed one). on the way back i went to peek at a big nurse shark under a coral head and out bolts a big black. i lost him in the haze but quickly picked him up again. got a long shot on him and ended up gutting him with the shaft. he shook off and darted 5ft away into a coral head. quick inspection showed no real escape routes, and plenty of green blood coming out. since we were in 30ft and had time to spare, i just sat and waited for him to bleed out a bit. jess ended up poking her head in a small hole on the other side and that pushed the wounded fish towards me, giving me the near point-blank shot to the head. i dragged him out and put the knife in the head while jess snapped away.

all in all a nice relaxed, successfull day on the water.

recovered a shaft
shot 2 nice grouper and a hog
got some funny pictures to show it

came home, and took the red grouper fillets to a "cook your catch" restaurant and had 2 HUGE meals cooked for us for only $25 with over a pound of fish per serving...and we knew it was FRESH!!!
 

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Nice report and nice fish! Thanks.
 
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