Sunday, April 30, 2006
GA Boys Day Out
I can go out with a group of people from most anywhere and have fun. If they are from New Jersey it may stretch my patience. If it is a group from S. GA, I’m home.
It took a little adjustment to get the trip started. Alan and his group have this affliction of having to go to work most days. The weekend weather forecast was for ripping wind but good on Friday. With a little creative scheduling on their part, they were able to get here in time on Fri for a 1pm pick up at the State Park dock.
I left Tyndall an hr early and went to the green bar outside the pass and caught us some bait. The cigar minnows are in and that seems to be attracting some of our summer aquatic residents. Reports of Spanish and a few kings is the word around the dock, no one knows what happened to the ling run this year, hardly any have been caught. I did see a school of big fish busting the surface while I was catching bait; I think they must have been Jack Crevalle.
We loaded the boat as scheduled at 1pm and headed out the pass. Seas were less than 2’ with a light wind from the SE. A combination of no rain and favorable currents have brought us some of the best looking water inshore that I have seen in years, very clear and deep blue and splotched with patches of sargassum (or as PK calls it “sarcastic”) weed. Our first mission was to get wet so I didn’t stop to try for dolphin, which are likely hiding below the weeds. My plan was to go to the offshore trusses, T-7,8,9,10. As we approached the area I could see on the radar that one to three boats covered all the planned sites. It looked as though the F-106’s were open so we went there. Good choice. There were snapper showing, layered out around the planes so there was hope for an eventful dive.
I suited up and headed down ahead of the GA divers while they searched through their gear boxes. My excuse was to check the anchor, current and vis. Some of you know the real reason. Nice view on the way down, lots of snapper came up to greet me and follow me back down. I stopped about 40’ above the wreck and surveyed the fish population, which was looking pretty good.
I turned around to check the school that was following me and the big leader came in too close and I shot her and strung her up. There were a few nice Jacks lit up in their chocolate brown hunting outfits that must have been finding some baitfish under the wings of the 1st plane. There were also a couple of nice red snapper resting on the bottom but no grouper to be seen so I dropped down on the larger of the two snapper. It took a little finesse to get a good beam shot instead of risking the small profile straight down angle. That worked out fine and I headed up off the bottom to string that one up.
After getting the equipment put back together I headed back down for the other big snapper. Andy was arriving at the wreck about this time, popping his flash. It must have disturbed the nice grouper that came sliding out from under the right wing and I stopped him with a shaft through the head. The grouper that is, not Andy.
The 2d of the 2 close airplanes was in easy view of the 1st with the vis being about 50’ or better. I hovered above while Andy and Alan explored the wrecks. I wasn’t sure what Alan was doing rooting around on the bottom, but then other divers do a lot of things that I don’t understand. I later found out that he hasn’t lost that childhood need to bring up a handful of mud from the bottom of the swimming-hole, he was making sure his depth gauge would read deeper than those of the rest of us!
Back on the surface we fished a while and caught quite a few snapper but only 2 that made the over 16 team.
The afternoon was wearing late enough that finally some boats moved off the other wrecks and we moved to T-10 for our final dive. I like this bridge especially because of the hard bottom surrounding it. I guess the fishermen had had pretty good luck because I didn’t see any grouper or sizeable snapper hanging out so I just started checking for lobster.
Alan said I should have paid more attention to the bottom while I was doing that because several grouper did come out to see what the commotion was. Shortly before I was going to head back up Andy pointed out a Cuda that had come down to visit. He might grow to be a big one because he seemed to understand that my approach was to do him harm and he left the area. I tried the ole’ stringer on the gun trick to get his attention but he just moseyed on off. That wasn’t the last of the cudas however, they were in good numbers near the surface and as I got up to about 30’ one came down to investigate me. It was kind of small but I shot it anyway, my first of the season. Of course while I was getting that one in several big ones came to view the show. After stringing that one up it was no trouble spotting the school of 15 or more up near the surface. I drifted up under the school and a pretty nice one peeled out of the group to check me out. It offered the perfect profile for a good shot so I took it. I almost hit it where I wanted to, just a little high, so I got to take a ride. It was fun but I didn’t want to go all the way back to the bridge so I lead it to the anchor line and pulled us back to the surface.
The on deck crew said they had a little excitement while we were down because they caught a small shark. It has only later dawned on me to question them a little more thoroughly about that shark. In retrospect I’m thinking it was a ling.
We finished up the day with a little more fishing and a trip back to the dock with enough light remaining to clean some fish, winding up another great day on the water here in paradise.
It took a little adjustment to get the trip started. Alan and his group have this affliction of having to go to work most days. The weekend weather forecast was for ripping wind but good on Friday. With a little creative scheduling on their part, they were able to get here in time on Fri for a 1pm pick up at the State Park dock.
I left Tyndall an hr early and went to the green bar outside the pass and caught us some bait. The cigar minnows are in and that seems to be attracting some of our summer aquatic residents. Reports of Spanish and a few kings is the word around the dock, no one knows what happened to the ling run this year, hardly any have been caught. I did see a school of big fish busting the surface while I was catching bait; I think they must have been Jack Crevalle.
We loaded the boat as scheduled at 1pm and headed out the pass. Seas were less than 2’ with a light wind from the SE. A combination of no rain and favorable currents have brought us some of the best looking water inshore that I have seen in years, very clear and deep blue and splotched with patches of sargassum (or as PK calls it “sarcastic”) weed. Our first mission was to get wet so I didn’t stop to try for dolphin, which are likely hiding below the weeds. My plan was to go to the offshore trusses, T-7,8,9,10. As we approached the area I could see on the radar that one to three boats covered all the planned sites. It looked as though the F-106’s were open so we went there. Good choice. There were snapper showing, layered out around the planes so there was hope for an eventful dive.
I suited up and headed down ahead of the GA divers while they searched through their gear boxes. My excuse was to check the anchor, current and vis. Some of you know the real reason. Nice view on the way down, lots of snapper came up to greet me and follow me back down. I stopped about 40’ above the wreck and surveyed the fish population, which was looking pretty good.
I turned around to check the school that was following me and the big leader came in too close and I shot her and strung her up. There were a few nice Jacks lit up in their chocolate brown hunting outfits that must have been finding some baitfish under the wings of the 1st plane. There were also a couple of nice red snapper resting on the bottom but no grouper to be seen so I dropped down on the larger of the two snapper. It took a little finesse to get a good beam shot instead of risking the small profile straight down angle. That worked out fine and I headed up off the bottom to string that one up.
After getting the equipment put back together I headed back down for the other big snapper. Andy was arriving at the wreck about this time, popping his flash. It must have disturbed the nice grouper that came sliding out from under the right wing and I stopped him with a shaft through the head. The grouper that is, not Andy.
The 2d of the 2 close airplanes was in easy view of the 1st with the vis being about 50’ or better. I hovered above while Andy and Alan explored the wrecks. I wasn’t sure what Alan was doing rooting around on the bottom, but then other divers do a lot of things that I don’t understand. I later found out that he hasn’t lost that childhood need to bring up a handful of mud from the bottom of the swimming-hole, he was making sure his depth gauge would read deeper than those of the rest of us!
Back on the surface we fished a while and caught quite a few snapper but only 2 that made the over 16 team.
The afternoon was wearing late enough that finally some boats moved off the other wrecks and we moved to T-10 for our final dive. I like this bridge especially because of the hard bottom surrounding it. I guess the fishermen had had pretty good luck because I didn’t see any grouper or sizeable snapper hanging out so I just started checking for lobster.
Alan said I should have paid more attention to the bottom while I was doing that because several grouper did come out to see what the commotion was. Shortly before I was going to head back up Andy pointed out a Cuda that had come down to visit. He might grow to be a big one because he seemed to understand that my approach was to do him harm and he left the area. I tried the ole’ stringer on the gun trick to get his attention but he just moseyed on off. That wasn’t the last of the cudas however, they were in good numbers near the surface and as I got up to about 30’ one came down to investigate me. It was kind of small but I shot it anyway, my first of the season. Of course while I was getting that one in several big ones came to view the show. After stringing that one up it was no trouble spotting the school of 15 or more up near the surface. I drifted up under the school and a pretty nice one peeled out of the group to check me out. It offered the perfect profile for a good shot so I took it. I almost hit it where I wanted to, just a little high, so I got to take a ride. It was fun but I didn’t want to go all the way back to the bridge so I lead it to the anchor line and pulled us back to the surface.
The on deck crew said they had a little excitement while we were down because they caught a small shark. It has only later dawned on me to question them a little more thoroughly about that shark. In retrospect I’m thinking it was a ling.
We finished up the day with a little more fishing and a trip back to the dock with enough light remaining to clean some fish, winding up another great day on the water here in paradise.
