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Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2009
Wed8Jul2009

July 7, 2009

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Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2009 | July 08, 2009 | Print

Seas: 1-2 feet
Winds: 5-10 SSW
Temp: 85 F
Viz: 10 feet
We took off this morning a little early to see if we could jump in the water a little before actual high slack tide just to see if we could take advantage of some cleaner water. To our joy and surprise, we were able to jump in an hour before the slack tide and make way through a couple of spots with a little better clarity than we had for the past couple of days. I was able to shoot a few nice sized hogfish and a couple of decent mangroves too.

At one point we were in an area that is particularly shallow which we know is occasionally visited by bull sharks and unfortunately for me, today was not an exception. The visibility here was not much more than about 8 feet so we had to wait for fish to move in close before shooting. After coming around one of the bridge pilings, I came upon a school of very nice mangroves, but they weren't being too cooperative and I missed my chance as they swam by. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to see a straggler that was also a good size. I lined him up, took the shot and stoned him. It didn't even quiver when I shot it so I wasn't too worried about attracting one of the predatory locals (I can't be right all the time). I take the fish off the shaft and put it in my catch bag (commonly referred to as "my shorts"). As I was reloading, the current swept me to the back side of the piling so I finished reloading in the ebby created by the outgoing tide (as the tide had already switched). As soon as I finish reloading my gun, I raise my head to spot a 7 foot bull shark coming in a little too hot for my taste. He was probably about a 250 lb specimen. I was a little worried due to the fact that I was swimming with a meal in my shorts. By the time I spotted him he couldn't have been more than 9-10 feet away from me so I immediately raise my gun to put it in between us and call for the boat through my snorkel without taking my head out of the water. Luckily for me the noise of my calling for the boat and the engine noise from the boat's approach was enough to send him off in a haste. Needless to say, I promptly removed the catch from my shorts and boarded the boat just in case it decided to return.

From here we headed offshore to see if the incoming tide had brought with it any cleaner water for some of our further spots and for the first time in the past 3-4 days, we were able to make out shapes and movement on the bottom in about 25 feet of water. It wasn't optimal but we were glad to take it in light of the conditions we have been putting up with for the past few days. The mangroves we found here were very decent size (averaging about 3-4 lbs) so we were able to limit out with some fish that were more than just meat for dinner. We were able to limit out at this spot in relatively short order, so we were heading back home after diving for only about 3 hours.

Looks like we may have to try heading out a little more before high slack to see if we're able to take advantage of even more clean incoming tide. Only time will tell.

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