We hit another spot that was dead, then on to another. I missed a really nice cobia that was sleeping on the bottom. I don’t know how I missed him I was right down on him. Albie got a triggerfish and Lou got a couple more large mangrove snapper. I shot a black grouper, not a big one. I also shot him in the tail so albie had to put a safety shot in him. The only thing that was kind of noteworthy about the fish, is the amount of current I had to swim against to get him. He wasn’t super deep or anything, 60 feet down but man the current was ripping, I was kind of amazed I was able to do it, honestly. After that we checked the vandenburg and there was nothing visible on it. Some small amberjacks, and the usual school of cudas. After that we headed in.

The next day we got on Andy and Jason’s boat and went out. Catherine had to work so it was Albie, Luis and I along with Andy and Jason. We headed out west and ended up out past Marquesas Rock. We hit a lot of big ledges in that vicinity and didn’t get a lot of fish. The big black grouper that were there  before had all disappeared. In their place there were a few commercial spearfishing boats, I don’t see commercial boats diving very often, and this was the first time I saw 3 in one day. I kind of think a lot of the big, well known ledges out there where the first spots that where cleaned out. Maybe it was just the warmer water, who knows. We got some nice fish, a black grouper here, a red grouper there, keys sized hogs and small muttons but nothing major. I shot a big mangrove it might have beat the last big one I got but didn’t have a scale. Maybe I should get a new scale.

We drifted for awhile trying to find where I saw the lane snappers were spawning, and the huge hog fish from the other day but couldn’t find it. I am going to go back and put more time in looking for it on my boat. The next spot we hit was covered with fish.  Albie shot a black, then Jason shot a black, I missed a black – they were all over. After the first drift we shot some ajs and barracuda and chopped them up for chum. We anchored up current from where the fish were and just start chopping up mass fish and chumming like crazy. Behind the boat became a feeding frenzy, 2 big lemon sharks and 5 reef sharks were zipping around fighting over pieces of fish on the bottom. A huge jewfish came out and tried to push up on the sharks. Yellow jacks and Amber jacks swimming around all over. It was great, in time red groupers and some short blacks showed up. We were having a blast watching the sharks and shooting fish. Then  I turned around and 4-5 huge fish were swimming up to me. For a second my brain didn’t recognize what they were, not king fish or barracuda. I yelled “wahoo” in case there was anyone else in their path, and shot the one the closest to me. I broke his spine and he was done. First wahoo and a pretty good sized one at that.

Next we checked jewfish rock and there was one black on it but he got away. There was bunch of Ajs and big cero mackerel circling it but I wasn’t really hungry for smoked fish so I passed.

I finally got a new mask that works, a couple weeks ago someone who will remain nameless threw my cressi occhio over board. I was able to try three replacement masks, the spetton(looks the same as the omer bandit) and the mares liquid skin, both fit me terrible. I also used an atomic frameless for a bit, that mask fit great but was too high volume for diving past 40-45 feet in my opinion, it would take way too much to clear the mask and it would suck my eyes out. I was about to order a new cressi but I tried Catherine’s omer aries 39. Wow, that mask fits great and it has the bigger lens like the cressi occhio. It’s a breeze to clear the mask and it seems to never leak, once in awhile my cressi ochio would leak, usually when I was 60 or more feet down. It’s a bad time to leak, it ruins the whole dive, so perhaps I am fortunate the occhio was lost.

[View with PicLens]

Some video from the past couple months, also uploader a much larger version of the video here, I suggest right clicking it and saving it to your hard drive to watch it.

The string of bad luck that followed is painful to relive. The first one I dropped down on was probably around 30 pounds or more. I pulled the trigger on a relatively long shot and the shooting line and bungee somehow became entangled and the spear stopped halfway there.  The next one …. the next one I should have been a bit closer or used a slip tip. Andy and Chris had similar luck.  All in all it was awesome and sucked at the same time. Catherine found some sort of crazy jellyfish that could follow people or run from them.

Then we came in to the reef and at one spot I saw a cluster of 4 black grouper just sitting there. I dropped down to the bottom as slow as I could and drilled the biggest one. He tangled himself around some debris and generally made a big mess. Chris  helped me me get him loose, but in the end I had to cut my shooting line. I have to take Luis’s suggestion and get the little tank for the boat. Getting a grouper out of crevice at 60 feet, is kind of a pain in the ass.  It’s fun as long as you can recover the fish, but sometimes it starts to get dangerous and sometimes you can’t get the fish. I didn’t have another line so I was out for the little bit of the day that was left. Just as well: my hand hurt so much I kind of wanted to stop anyway.

The next day we got up at the crack of dawn mostly due to Brad’s ridiculous morning schedule.  This time Jason came with, along with Catherine. We met Andy and his crew out on the water in the same area as the day before but there was no wahoo to be seen. My boat’s engine died and we sent jason on Andy’s boat while Brad , me and Catherine fixed it (OK, Brad fixed it, while we held things for him). Once Brad got the engine running we anchored on a wreck in 200 feet of water and started chumming. The water was dirtier today then the day before and maybe that is why there was no wahoo around. We chunked up bontio and jack crevelle and had a pretty good slick going but nothing swam up that we could shoot. What did swim up was one the most kick ass schools of yellowtails I have ever seen. Dozens of fat yellowtails hung out about 40 feet under us, and would instantly drop as soon as you tried to dive down on them. After a while we gave up on that spot and then anchored on another wreck in around 90 feet of water.  We chummed that one also and had massive schools of bait surround us, but the only other fish that showed where Amberjacks.

Then we went snorkeling on the reef, took some little reef fish for dinner and also saw about 5 gag grouper, all were short. I haven’t seen a lot of gags on the reef so this was kind of interesting. Catherine took pictures of some old anchors we found. She is enjoying her new wetsuit top. The only company we found that makes a wetsuit, open cell , two piece in her tiny size was immersion. The 3mm top fits her so much better then her old 5mm top and she is still warm so that has been a big victory.

[View with PicLens]