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September
arrived, and we decided to celebrate by hunting the
reefs for a few tasty critters. Unlike the gluttons,
we dive for personal consumption and satisfaction of
the primal need to kill. We don't take pride in
shooting everything legal just to claim some kind of
notoriety among friends. Our pride comes when we take
quality fish.
There is a
mentality that you should shoot everything you can
legally stuff in your cooler. As a true SEAHUNTER, you
only shoot what you need. You don't shoot to fill up
your neighbors freezer. Those who spear commercially
and those who spear recklessly will cause the demise
of our SPORT.
With that said,
I'll tell you a little about our trip. We left the
inlet at sunrise. NOAA said to expect SE wind at 10 kt,
seas 3'. "Well, it's not the first time they got
it wrong" was the comment from the crew. The wind
was from the NE, and the waves were 3'. They were 3'
from the NE and 3' from the SE with some swells mixed
in too. We marked the ledge, and went for a peek. The
vis had been top to bottom last week, but we were
looking at about 5' vis today. Bad vis would run off
those not dedicated, but 5' is good enough to hunt.
The real story today was the current. It was ripping.
You couldn't swim against it and hold ground. Our only
salvation was to dive ledges where we knew we would be
sheltered from the current. All those years of mapping
the ledges pay off when you need it. We needed to dive
protected from the current , or give up and go home.
On the second
dive, we hunted a ledge we hunted many years ago. This
ledge used to be one of the most pristine dives you
could imagine. It was empty. No lobster, no mangos, no
grouper. All I saw were a few pork fish, sheepshead,
and margates. When I was younger, this is the ledge we
all dreamed about. Now, I get sick thinking about it.
We found a
longline stretched along one ledge, hooks were rusted.
These guys are supposed to stay outside 600' and there
is no way that line drifted in. The story is that this
goes on all the time. Our wonderful government can't
stop the lawless commercial fishermen from sucking our
reefs completely clean of all life, unless they really
wanted to.
Reports Page
Pete
hangs out in the palm while I clean the fish.
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