Well, still on the mend from hand surgery and knowing that I am dying to get back in the water, Les (Bughunter) shows up in my driveway at 8:30am to say lets go diving. After 2 minutes thought, I was grabbing gear and we are off to his house to load his boat. Les calls his dad Ronnie and he says that he will go along with us for the ride and bottom fish out of the boat while we are diving. On the water by 10:30am headed out. Weatherman definately missed it out of Southport area. Got to the diving grounds by 1:00 ish. Circled a few times then dropped the anchor. Stopped on a ledge that went from 55' to 68'. Les was going to try a new mask that his buddy gave him. I drop in and hit the bottom shooting. Vis is about 18'-20'. Perfect shoot range. I know that Les will be only a few minutes behind. The first hog gets twisted on the line pretty good and as I am working on that a "herd" of hogs from 18 - 22 lbs are circling. Les hits the bottom and takes the lead hog at a nice 22lb 4oz. I finish my untangle and reload, my hog is 19lb 6oz. At this point the remaining 4 from the herd start to figure something isn't right and move off. Even not being able to load too quickly due to the hand, I am still having a blast with all of the activity around us. Next thing I know, I see Les miss 2 fish back to back. Wondering if he has a bent shaft, I then see him clear his "new" mask. At this point as I am watching, he has cleared his mask at least 5 times. The fish are so curious, they are circling him to see what he is doing. I am yelling in my reg, SHOOT 'EM, SHOOT 'EM, RIGHT THERE. Come to find out, as soon as he cleared it, it would fog in just a few seconds. He hangs in there and still shoots a stringer. We decide to leave the hook down and dive it again. On the second dive, the current is slack and silts up to the point of only 12' vis. Les drops this time with the "old faithful" mask and gets to work. At this point, the fish are really skiddish, so we settle with shooting a few more apiece and do a bit of recon. Didn't see any bugs on either dive but figured for a late start, we still did pretty good just getting out and getting wet. Took a head sea going out and had a nice ride back in. I think we might have to stop there again in the not so distant future.

Biggest hog 22lb change
Biggest grouper 21lb change

Scoobi Doo!:toast:

Awesome!

damn nice fish. i def. need to get up that way for a hog hunt:)

jeep

Dude..... do you have a copyright to post my face all over the internet?:moon:. Have you checked the weather for this weekend again. treated the mask today shouldnt have that prob again.
Call me later,
Les

Dude..... do you have a copyright to post my face all over the internet?:

You didn't seem to mind whenever you shot that 71lb cobia.:scratchhead:

That was when it was daylight!!! I was purttier then. Are you up for an overnight trip this weekend?

Nice fish, guys! Where do you go out of?

Nice Craig!

Damn nice fish!! Wish the hogs were that thick down here AND of that size.

we go out of southport.

nice hogs!!

hey toe, where do you dive in raleigh, I will be there in sept., oct. time frame working at the harris plant. Is the down under dive shop any good??