Has anybody ever done this?

[Bob DBF]

We call this kind of dive, "Spearfishing in kelp". You've gotta stay very still (with no bubbles) to get the big calicos to come in close

The trick to hunting is to know when to move and when to stay still, regardless of wether you are using a speargun or camera.



Bob
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I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[Tigerman]

Exactly why I really LOVE diving a very specific site in the red sea in the summer - Theres huge schools of batfish, snappers, barracudas and unicornfish and with a bit of luck, things come over to hunt them..

---------- Post added September 30th, 2013 at 06:49 AM ----------

Yup! With many different types of fish too. The more still and calm you stay the closer and closer they get until you are part of the school. It's amazing to just float along with them. My biggest schools are probably Krill Wrasse in the Caribbean. Most dives we did there were a type of drift and by just floating along I was absolutely engulfed by these cool purple fish and I just enjoyed being part of what you might describe as a bait ball. It's so surreal and you get lost in the perfect moment

 

[tracydr]

I didn't realize the Smart Wool was merino. I guess I thought it was a wool/synthetic blend. I have a shawl that I bought for my wedding made from virgin lambs wool. That is incredibly soft and non-itchy.
I'd love to have some alpaca underclothes. Alpaca or vicuña wool is so soft.
I've started to become a big believer in bamboo fabrics. They keep you cool and dry in the summer and warm in the winter. I'm sure we'll be seeing undergarments ( in fact, I think 4th Element might already have some) made from bamboo. Its soft and silky, too. Great for extra sensitive skin.

 

[TSandM]

I had great hopes for merino, but I can tolerate it for about 20 minutes before I want to rip my skin off. I do a little better with lambswood/angora, but even those garments are for brief, evening wear.

A friend who used to own sweater stores explained it to me. It's a combination of fiber length and stiffness. Wool, by its nature, has a short fiber length, so when you spin it into yarn, there are a lot of little ends sticking out. If the fiber is also stiff, as standard wool is, the yarn is effectively "prickly". Some people are more sensitive to this than others, and I am one of the sensitive sort. Artificial fibers like microfiber and the fiber of which Polarfleece is made can be as long as the manufacturer wants them to be, resulting in a much sleeker yarn. This is why silk used to be so prized -- it was the only natural material with incredibly long fibers.

 

[mmadiver]

Oddly enough this tactic works for scubaboard as well...no posting, just reading - you see all kinds of strange wildlife here.

It seems that the slower I go, the more I see.

I keep playing with the idea of going on a dive and not going anywhere -- just parking myself in an interesting-looking spot and sitting there for a half hour or so, and just watching what goes by and how life plays out. The only reasons I haven't done it is that sitting still gets cold awfully fast, and I don't think I could find a dive buddy who'd be willing to do it with me.

Has anybody else done this? Just found a likely-looking spot and hung out to see what happened, and what crawled out of the woodwork when it thought you were gone?

 

[RJHinPDX]

I think it sounds like a great idea. I'd drive up for it!

 

[Harmonyhallresorts]

Do it all the time here in St.Vincent. This is known as "critter country" and it's amazing what will come out not to mention, right up to you, when your just relax and "lime". Lack of traffic doesn't hurt either.

 

[splodeboog]

I agree - slow is the way to go. Spent a lot of time in the BVI just hanging around one coral mound. Saw tons of critters! Have also been on dives with supposed "great dive masters" whose idea of a good dive is to cover as much ground on the reef in the fastest time possible. Not sure why people were impressed with this, because there was no way to see anything!

 

[JudasFm]

I sat for about ten minutes today in Salinas, on a reef about 10m down. It's not something I usually do, but this time there were shoals upon shoals of different types of fish - I've never seen the place so crowded before - and I was right in the middle of them (fish are a lot less shy than I initially expected!)

I could have quite happily sat there for the whole dive, but one of the others was doing a drift dive and the boat was moving to the next buoy, so unfortunately I had to swim on with them

 

[Lopez116]

Yes, I did this in Grand Cayman at Devil's Grotto when the silversides were in. Go in one of the caverns where there are tons of silversides, pick an empty spot where the rock meets the sand, sit down, and just relax. The silversides will get used to you, first, then the jacks, then you watch their natural behavior and watch the jacks bolt in and out of the schools of silversides. Really quite impressive.


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