Biggen
Contributor
Hey guys! Haven't posted for a while but now that I'm back into diving expect to see me around a little more often.
Three of us headed out yesterday about 8am to get some spearfishing in. We were in a time crunch to begin with as one of the guys with us had to be back at the dock by 1pm so we decided to hit some inshore wrecks (less than 70' of water) and see what we could come up with. Ended up diving three wrecks in the gulf yesterday.
Started with the Chickasaw which is a ~100' tug in about 65' of water. It is a fairly old wreck and I believe most of it is buried in the sand so there isn't much relief. Anyway, this wreck proved to have the least amount of "shootable" fish on it and we called the dive after we took a couple Spanish mackerel off her. Viz was in the area of around 40' or so. Two weeks ago we dove it and saw about a 400# jew fish on it. But I guess he decided to head somewhere else as we didn't see him again.
Second dive was on the LOSS pontoon. Its a old navy salvage pontoon. Visibility was much worse on this dive than the Chickasaw. In fact, as we drove over to it you could see a line of "muck" in the water that separated the clean water from the bad water in the gulf. As I was diving down to tie us off to the wreck I was wondering if it would even be worth it, but as I descended about 20', the water cleared up a bit and it proved to actually be the best dive of the day. We ended up taking several triggers and Spanish mackerel off of the site. Buddy shot a good size Gag but it got off the spear before he could get to it. This was my second time on the pontoon and I absolutely love this site. There is so much structure around it that (on a clear day) you have lots of types of fish that swim around this thing. Unfortunately, the viz wasn't that good so we hung around the pontoon much of the time instead of venturing farther off for better hunting.
Third dive was on Dan barge. It is about a 100' steel barge in about 60' of water. We actually dove this wreck on the same tanks we used to dive the Chickasaw on. 1500 - 2000 PSI is plenty to dive this things for about 10 minutes and take some fish back home with us. Viz was about the same on this wreck as the Pontoon. No more than 30' at the most. Took a couple more mackerels from her.
Got my new 19' pony tank last Friday so this weekend gave me a great opportunity to get it "tuned" it. After playing around with my trim weights for a bit, I couldn't even tell it was back there. Great all around backup system. After I untied us from the last wreck I switched over to the pony to see how much air I could actually suck out of her. From ~65' of water and doing a 3 minute safety stop at 15', I still had over 2000psi in the tank when I hit the surface. Very cool!
This is my 6th straight weekend of diving the gulf. The fish are definitely moving back in now that the tourists have left. I saw more triggers and snappers on the wrecks than I have seen so far. Still haven't seen many legal sized groupers though. Hopefully as fall approaches those guys will start coming around again.
If we get to go out again next Sunday (on some offshore sites) I'm hoping to land some AJ's. Although from what I have read and seen, I may not be up for the fight they give me.
Rodman
Three of us headed out yesterday about 8am to get some spearfishing in. We were in a time crunch to begin with as one of the guys with us had to be back at the dock by 1pm so we decided to hit some inshore wrecks (less than 70' of water) and see what we could come up with. Ended up diving three wrecks in the gulf yesterday.
Started with the Chickasaw which is a ~100' tug in about 65' of water. It is a fairly old wreck and I believe most of it is buried in the sand so there isn't much relief. Anyway, this wreck proved to have the least amount of "shootable" fish on it and we called the dive after we took a couple Spanish mackerel off her. Viz was in the area of around 40' or so. Two weeks ago we dove it and saw about a 400# jew fish on it. But I guess he decided to head somewhere else as we didn't see him again.
Second dive was on the LOSS pontoon. Its a old navy salvage pontoon. Visibility was much worse on this dive than the Chickasaw. In fact, as we drove over to it you could see a line of "muck" in the water that separated the clean water from the bad water in the gulf. As I was diving down to tie us off to the wreck I was wondering if it would even be worth it, but as I descended about 20', the water cleared up a bit and it proved to actually be the best dive of the day. We ended up taking several triggers and Spanish mackerel off of the site. Buddy shot a good size Gag but it got off the spear before he could get to it. This was my second time on the pontoon and I absolutely love this site. There is so much structure around it that (on a clear day) you have lots of types of fish that swim around this thing. Unfortunately, the viz wasn't that good so we hung around the pontoon much of the time instead of venturing farther off for better hunting.
Third dive was on Dan barge. It is about a 100' steel barge in about 60' of water. We actually dove this wreck on the same tanks we used to dive the Chickasaw on. 1500 - 2000 PSI is plenty to dive this things for about 10 minutes and take some fish back home with us. Viz was about the same on this wreck as the Pontoon. No more than 30' at the most. Took a couple more mackerels from her.
Got my new 19' pony tank last Friday so this weekend gave me a great opportunity to get it "tuned" it. After playing around with my trim weights for a bit, I couldn't even tell it was back there. Great all around backup system. After I untied us from the last wreck I switched over to the pony to see how much air I could actually suck out of her. From ~65' of water and doing a 3 minute safety stop at 15', I still had over 2000psi in the tank when I hit the surface. Very cool!
This is my 6th straight weekend of diving the gulf. The fish are definitely moving back in now that the tourists have left. I saw more triggers and snappers on the wrecks than I have seen so far. Still haven't seen many legal sized groupers though. Hopefully as fall approaches those guys will start coming around again.
If we get to go out again next Sunday (on some offshore sites) I'm hoping to land some AJ's. Although from what I have read and seen, I may not be up for the fight they give me.
Rodman
