Pensacola Spearfishing Report 7/4/09

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Hetland

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Location
Gulf of Mexico
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Met up with XRay, Recharge and Brandon at the dock, and hit the water a few minutes after the sun broke the horizon. We were fortunate to have near flat conditions from the launch to our first dive spot about 18 miles out. Even the pass only threatened the occasional swell. Recharge and I splashed on the Eilene Beard Reef at 7:51am. We found that there was no surface current whatsoever, and that temps ranged from 82 at the surface to 67 at 92ft. It was so calm, we had trouble keeping the safety buoy behind the boat. Our good fortune did not stop there. Upon making our descent, we found that there was between 50 and 60 feet of visibility. We explored the reef, and found mostly tropicals and bait fish in and around the pyramids. I noticed that the predators were all off to the South of the structure, which jibed with our marker buoy placement, and the markings on the sonar. The snapper I saw were of two general varieties, the kind that were too small to spear, and the kind that were too far away to spear. The rest of them had undoubtedly moved to other reefs. About halfway through my bottom time, I did get a good shot at an aj, so I took it, and then he took me for a little whirl around the water. Once I got him in close I reached for my ankle knife and found that it had abandoned it's sheath sometime earlier in the dive. Luckily I had another knife on my bc, so I used it to quiet the fish for transport back to the boat. On my way to the safety stop, I noticed that recharge had strung a nice trigger, and I was already hoping to trade him for my jack :D Barry and Brandon rolled a few minutes after we made it on board. Barry returned with an amberjack, a nice tilefish and a red snapper. Brandon returned with a lane snapper, red snapper, and two or three black snapper.

For our second dive, Larry and I splashed on the Rusty B Reef. All I'll say is that I was not impressed. I shot what I thought at the time was a black snapper, that turned out to be a 15" red. Luckily, there was a hungry barracuda at the surface that was more than happy to profit from my loss. That was the best part of the Rusty B.

After making it back, Larry and I talked XRay out of diving the Rusty B. Instead, we moved over to the REDACTED and XRay splashed there instead. I won't spoil XRay's story by trying to tell it, so he'll have to chime in on the board and give us all a good telling. I will say that we will definitely head back to the REDACTED for some follow-up dives.

On the way back in, we rolled on the Mass, but I'll save that for another post.

At the end of the day, we made it back to the fish fry with two AJ's, two Red Snapper, six Black Snapper, a Lane Snapper, Triggerfish, and Filefish. Not a bad haul.

Video:
 
I was waiting for your posts since you had all the pics and videos, but to add to the great post above I'll say that my second dive was very interesting at what is listed above as REDACTED. On my way down after splash I could see the grouper coming up to meet me from the surface and I knew then that I was in for a treat. I loaded my gun on my way down and at about 50 feet a nice sized snapper came into my sights.....Pop.... One for the stringer, as I got him loaded up I was joined by about 10 AJ's all about 15-20 inches. They stayed right behind me the whole time (I think they were asking are you my Daddy?)
Anyways, the bottom had just come into view and I could see the reef below so I started swimming toward it, as I did the snapper came in toward me again....Pop, another one for the stringer, no hogs but respectable fish, I didn't even have the second one on the stringer when the snapper came in close to check out the newest kill, all this happening at 70 feet in 90+ feet of water. I was beginning to think to myself, how many more can I shoot to limit out the boat, because it was looking like I had all day to shoot and plenty of nice fish to kill! Pop.... A third nice Red snapper for the stringer. Man, I was in the zone..... This fish was not a great shot and he danced wildly above me for a minute before I got him wrangled and strung up. As I'm stringing him, yes of course a Bull Shark has to show up and ruin my perfect party! Now he's maybe 5 feet and staying on the bottom moving slowly in a real big circle and sometimes working out of site so I'm not overly concerned...Yet!
The bad news is that the Red Snapper have exited the area and my AJ buddies are gone too. So I swim around looking for other prey and a nice trigger comes and thrusts himself onto my spear (Spearfisherman will know what I mean here, as these fish are dumb, and I mean dumb). As I'm stringing up the trigger and trying to get him to let go of my glove, I look around and no more bull shark, and I can see the snapper in the distance working there way back in, and the smile is starting to come back to my face.....Oh wait, crap, there he is again! He's coming in slow and trying to figure out how he's going to get my fish. I watch him a bit as he now starts moving off the bottom and slowly works himself up to my depth which is still about 20 feet off the bottom. He ends up circling me a few times within about 10-15 feet and my manly demeanor (Yelling and screaming my ass off while I do what must look like jumping jacks to make myself look bigger) seems to keep him at bay. Don't laugh because it seems to have worked and he leaves again.
Now as I look around I can see the snapper back in play above the reef again which I had moved off of while I play keep away from the shark, so I swim back again and on the way see that little tiny buoy line that I had swam down (We were live boating with a buoy) so I thought that I'd tie my fish to the buoy and that way I wouldn't have to swim to the surface with the fish and possibly have another wild encounter with a shark on my safety stop or on the surface. So I tied my fish to the line, well enough that it wouldn't come loose, and I swam away keeping it in sight. As I looked back from about 40 feet away I realized these look like a target bouncing in the water about 10 feet off the sand so I went back to work on plan "B" which I thought on the way may be to just keep them on me. But, as I looked at my over anxious attempt at a knot I quickly realized that there was no way I was going to get the knot undone, I played with the knot for a few minutes but with no luck, So I then moved the Buoy closer to a reef module thinking this would provide my "Bait" more cover. And it was about this time my friend and yours shows back up, now he's swimming a bit faster and moving in quicker circles, he wants those fish and the rumble in his belly is telling him not to leave without them! I decide as I look from above at my fish that my best bet is going to be to try and get to the surface as quickly and safely as possible and have the boys on the boat pull the fish up to safety. So I make my way up to the surface as safely as I can and as I hit the surface yell to the boys to pull the buoy up, I give them my gun and swim back to the buoy and get it and swim back to the boat with it.
They pull they line up as fast as possible, but it's to late. They manage to get my stringer with one red snapper head and one untouched trigger fish.
Once on the boat they tell me that they see the buoy thrashing around and figure I'm pulling on it during my safety stop, but I explain that I never touched the line during my ascent, and that my buddy must having been surgically removing my fish from my stringer.

Even with the loss of the fish, it was still a great day of fishing and diving. The shark encounter was the kind I like....Uneventful with not a lot of butt puckering involved, and the diving was safe and the viz was awesome probably pushing 60 feet on the second dive.
 
The only thing that really makes me upset is my recent lack of video to share with everyone, so after watching HETLANDS videos for two weeks now with his camera mounted on his gun, I'm now off to search for a mount for my smaller camera to my gun! I think according to ALex that this is an automatic shark deterent as well, so maybe that'll mean more fish in the boat! ;-)
 
Great report and the videos are coming out better, aside from the minute or so of "washing machine", but hey, atleast a little NIN was good.

Xray, ever consider just launching the fish to the surface on an SMB? Bagging them also seems to help some people, if the fish are baggable(get a large goodybag or a burlap sack).
 




What happens when a 5-6' Bull Shark wants the three snapper and one trigger fish you just speared:
IMG_2568.jpg




Not bad for an hour of "work"
IMG_2580.jpg
 
PS: I ended up with one mystery filet (either the filefish, or one of the spades that those other guys shot, but I think it was the file) The meat was denser than snapper, and a tad richer, but not as buttery as an amberjack. I pan cooked it with olive oil, garlic, ginger and just a shot of soy sauce. I added it to some angel hair with a creamy parmesan sauce and it could not have been tastier.
 
I hate to give up my SMB for that use, but I need to have something with about 10 lbs of lift to send up with my fish. I had heard of the burlap bag thing, but I've not tried it. It's on my to-do list though, along with smushing a water bottle up under water when a shark comes around......Urban legend? I feel like a new breed of Myth Buster! :eyebrow:

Great report and the videos are coming out better, aside from the minute or so of "washing machine", but hey, atleast a little NIN was good.

Xray, ever consider just launching the fish to the surface on an SMB? Bagging them also seems to help some people, if the fish are baggable(get a large goodybag or a burlap sack).
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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