I left for the Antares at noon on 4/21/10, 22 miles south of Pensacola with my dive buddy Tommy. 1 foot seas on the way out, 2-4 on the way back. New to spear fishing, first time to ever fire a spear gun. Previous experience only with a pole spear. Took my new Ocean Rhino RX4 to 115 feet and fired at the largest AJ in the school. It was a little bigger than I thought... And more recoil with all three 5/8" bands than I expected, and I failed to keep my right elbow locked. The butt of the gun nocked the regulator out of my mouth and the fight was on. Step one- get a regulator back in my mouth. Done. (air is a good thing) Step 2 fight the AJ. Stringer firmly in place, I finally fought slowly to the surface. Discovered that we had left the transom door closed. (Next time we will hang a line over the side to secure the stringer while boarding) No one on board the boat so I was forced to single hand the beast into the well forward of the outboard. Success!!! Except for with one mighty tail kick, the fish flopped out the starboard side of the transon and back into the water with the stringer still attached. Catch and release. AJ out of sight, air below 500. C'est la vie! Great video posted by a nearby boat. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA4VX7Sz3B0)

After an hour on the surface we made our second dive. No shots but had a ball watching a goliath grouper in the wheel house of the ship.
Returned to the boat only to find that the divers from another boat ("Reel Fun"????) had found the AJ on their dive and had returned the AJ with the stringer to our boat, and then they had left for home. See attached photo. Thanks guys! Thank you to boat number 1 for the video, and boat number 2 for the AJ and stringer. Hope you are on the forum! Home-made rub and smoked over hickory wood. Delicious dinner, with a great story.

http://www.spearfishingplanet.com/at...1&d=1272377642

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DrLile,

Welcome to the planet. That's a great story and cool video.

Care to guess what we call this around here?
We call it DEAD boat diving.

For more reasons than one.

Be careful out there and keep posting

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Another reason for me to continue the practice of always leaving someone on board.

How did you string it? It looks like you hung the stringer on it like a piece of jewelry or a piercing.

Pretty damn funny that those guys even thought to video you coming back up to the boat.

Next time kill the fish with your knife before or while ascending. AJs tend to come back to like and kick asses at safety stops.

C

Stringing a fish through the eyes seems to calm them down, though like Charlie said, they'll come back to life on the way up.

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Caught only enough of the fish with the stringer to get it on board the boat. In gill out mouth or eye to eye next time. (Learned last year that triggers strung through the eyes still like to bite legs)
Kill spike or knife to the brain before beginning a controlled ascent. Dead fish tend to fight less.
Need a third friend that can stay topside. Anybody out there live in Pensacola? Did check the security of the anchor at beginning of the dive before hunting. It was secure enough that we ended up having to cut the anchor line free after the second dive. Plenty of recovered anchors at home. Will use wreck anchor next time. It seems that we all lose and recover an equal number of anchors. Will probably get this anchor back in a year or two...
Learned that the Red Snapper is not endangered in northern Gulf waters. Felt like I was in an aquarium featuring the Red Snapper. We will see how many are still hanging around come June first.
Blessed to have such beautiful diving right in my back yard.

You never know. I was diving with Polespear in Bayport. He went down first and as I hit the bottom I watched my anchor skip on the bottom and go buy me. It was pretty rough that day. It could have been ugly. I did manage to get back in the boat, start it up and find the hole and reset. Sure was happy to have a windless that day. This was a place I called tabletop. Flat 4 ft across that always held 3 or 4 with no where to run. Guess who cleaned the hole out while I was waterskiing.


Does anyone remember the story about Brad Culpepper and his Dad. Correct me if I am wrong but what I heard was their boat joined them on the bottom during a dive.

I'm not preaching here because I've done it myself, but over the years I've learned a few things.

I know they preach the buddy system over and over in class and for most less experienced divers I agree with that. Once you gain some experience, I think that with two divers, you're actually safer to do one up and one down. Of course the diver should have a completely redundant air source (a pony bottle with a first and second stage on it).

Safer still is the buddy system and a boat driver. The ocean is a fickle place and too many things can happen to an unattended boat during your dive.

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I've seen the boat come loose from the anchor twice. It CAN happen and if we didn't have good weather on one of those trips I wouldn't be typing this. And yes, we checked the anchor both times. One time the eye bolt securing the line to the anchor chain disconnected. I swam down the ledge expecting to come across the anchor and it was there, with no line to the surface. The other time was in rough weather and the wind shifted causing the anchor line to be chaffed by the ledge until it broke free, thankfully that time we had people on the boat who realized what happened. We now dive with someone ALWAYS on the boat, and like Keith mentioned, have done multiple trips with just the two.

And as you become even more comfortable and experienced you'll stop anchoring all together. Unless we're freediving the anchor hardly ever enters the water anymore.

Nice jack and welcome to SFP

Amen to fickle. The former Buccaneer, Brad Culpepper and right before being drafted, had the boat he was on sink while all 3 divers were in the water 20 some miles off Pensacola.

We always dive one up, one down. When we dive with 3 or more and two go down at once, we usually split once we hit the bottom anyways, so no buddy redundancy there. Besides, you have to do a surface interval, why not do it while your other diver is down? I always leave someone on board....and that someone has to be someone who actually knows how to operate the boat.

that is a great story about the AJ. surely makes for a great start to spearing..nice gun BTW..great first choice.

lots of good boat advice on this thread, above all, be safe

You must be livin right! Congrats! Take heed, a lot of good wisdom here!

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Yes I agree, great story and great advice. I remember hearing a story a year or so ago about a guy who was diving in about 28 or 30 feet off of Dunedin and his anchor let go. His wife was on the boat but had trouble getting it started. He was lucky in that he was in a somewhat crowded area and was able to get back to his boat but scary still. That would suck to swim down the ledge and see your anchor without a line on it. Talk about a puckered ascent!

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ALWAYS have someone on the boat who can OPERATE it.
Everyone goes down, i stay on the boat, period.

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Nice fish bro. Stay safe. Make sure you have some safety shears to cut that line if he ties you up.

Thanks for the report and pics.

MBD

Key words there is "who can operate it". Make sure the person topside knows how to start the motors, cut or pull anchor in emergency situation, and use the VHF. Also make sure they understand how to operate the GPS to give location to coast guard or how to get home.

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