# Who's gonna eat who?



## Billybob+ (Jul 12, 2011)

Went out with the BIlly team Saturday and it was a hoot! Just like old times! I sure miss our regular diving adventures. I gave them two choices, unknown runovers or Natural bottom for bugs...danged it..they chose the unknown. First dive up turned out to be coops, Billy and Billy hit it and said it was loaded with snaps but nothing else. depth was 90 so we decided to move a little deeper (as if you can get away from those red [email protected][email protected]!) second dive turned out to be more coops got 4 trigger and a black snapper on that one PLUS the added joy of a lionfish spine right under my lefthand index fingernail..that smarted a tad. 
Next up, I put BIlly and BIlly on another unknown that I know I'd caught grouper on when we found it. they came up with a handful of trigger, 1 gag and one red. Next dive up for me, I decided to break my routine and carry a speargun. We dropped anchor on the wreck and hit it perfect. Going down, I expected to see a wreck but the anchor literally dissappeared into a cloud, a square cloud at that, of glass minnows..MILLIONS OF THEM! it was cool to watch, as the boat pumped up and down from the "1-2 footers" above the minnows would flee the anchor rope making a tunnel which you could see clear to the wreck and immediatly the tunnel would colllapse ending the brief glimpse of the wreck. we hit the bottom, I prssed through the minnows and found a little Red holding close to the structure. I started to polegun it and remembered I had a newbie who wanted to pop some grouper so I called him over, flushed the glass minnows away and said "there he is, pop him". Just as he started to shoot I realized, directly behind him was a "fanning Pec Fin" a VERY LARGE Pec fin...HOLY MOLY!!! HOLD YOUR FIRE! too late, luckly he saw the red and NOT the Jewfish so no harm done. the Jewfish just eased off out of the way and we quickly got the red taken care of. I immediately went in search of the big boy to show Clint, as he'd not even seen it, focusing on the red shot.

We spent the rest of the dive just admiring him. I've been diving a few years now and I've only seen 4 of these magnificant fish, with TWO of those being in the last two weeks. One on a public spot that many know about and this one even larger on a private spot! I've gotta get a new goPro and video this beast!

So we got side tracked and I realized we were pushing on time. I grabbed We started up the anchor rope and were swarmed by some Jacks, that I'd not noticed to this point. I don't normally care for AJ but a buddy had put in a request for one so I decided to pop one of the little fellas. I hit him through the gill plates and missed his spine. He turned toward me with his mouth flared open as if saying "OWWWWWW" When I shoot bigger jacks I like to get my hands in there throat to quickly get them under control. I, without thinking shoved my SLEEVELESS arm (danged, I forgot I had a cutoff wet suit on) into his mouth and grabbed the spearshaft running across the very rear of his throat. Well, that ended that. thank GOD! the pretty much have nothing they can do once that's done. I hate wasting time fighting them. We headed up, made the safty stop and went on to the boat. All along, now realizing I had a BARE ARM inside this fishes mouth I was wondering, "How's this gonna work, getting my arm out and all" Well, we hit the surface and BIlly Grabbed the TAIL of this fish of all things. Now why he didn'g grab both ends of the shaft I'll never figure but when he grabbed the tail all hell broke loose and so did my arm! I managed to get my arm out but BIlly lost his tail and now he was free swimming with my spear and gun in tow. He was still very green because I had him "sleeping" on the way up. Well, the ensuing cluster ended up with a win but it just goes to show that even a jack can cause trouble. He was only about 35-40# I'm glad I passed on the good ones!.

we went on to more spts with more of the same, gags, reds, trigger and one of our spots turned out to be the kind of spot I like for bugs so I pulled a handfull off of it.
we hit one shallow spot on the way in that turned out to be a container and only in 70 feet it turned out to be our best dive. I poled a couple of gags and about 2-3 jumbo trigger so that was worth the stop! 

Moral of the story is if you're gonna control a Jack with an arm in the throat, make sure you use the arm WITH a sleeve on it and make sure your buddies know to lift it in the boat by the spear shaft!

Ended the day with:

5 gags
3 reds
1 black snapper
18 triggerfish
1 AJ
6 bugs
2 pokes from lionfish. one under the index fingernail (Ouch)
2 purple Jelly stings
1 hamburgered up arm


----------



## aquatic argobull (Mar 2, 2009)

Great stuff! Sounds like an eventful day. That's what it's all about, exploring the big blue unknown, having fun with friends, coming back with food and stories to tell...and apparently an AJ bite? Never seen that before


----------



## Dynamic (Oct 3, 2007)

Killer day!!!


----------



## Stud Muffin (Apr 25, 2012)

That's awesome. Sounds like a great day.


----------



## coolbluestreak (Jun 27, 2011)

Thanks for the report, it was a funny read.


----------



## MillerTime (Jul 6, 2011)

Sounds like that was a painful but productive day. Always love catching those bugs.


----------

