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Letrappes
07-28-2004, 03:47 PM
Me and PatMyGreen went out friday morning to do some spearing. We headed out of the pass around 10 miles to some rock bottom about 90 feet deep. The vis was around 60 at the top going to about 20 at 70 fsw. We immediately started seeing red snapper, trigger's and red grouper. I got down to shooting some snapper while pat went looking for lobster.
After spearing my third snapper, I saw a large shape to my right in the distance. A bull shark about 6-7 feet long is cruising up on me and comes close enough to touch on his first pass. I string that snapper and start heading back over to tell pat what's up. The bull does another run by me and then I see the second one behind him. This is starting to make me a little nervous at this point.
I get over to pat and try to explain what's going on with rapid hand gesture's of really big fish and motions towards the spear of putting the powerhead on. I wanted his as I'd forgotten mine on the boat. I put the powerhead on and told him I'm going up. He just shrugs and sticks his head back down a crack in the rock. I see the bull's cruising by again and get his attention that he needs to go up too. He hadn't seen them yet.
I start going up and am rapidly joined by patrick. As we ascend the bull's come up with us. One of them takes a run towards me and pat runs it off. The second one comes on and pat sticks a spear in its tail. Both bull's take off quickly. I am suddenly hating having speared anything.
We are left alone to ascend to around 30 feet when both bull's show back up swimming fast, arched and ready to strike. Pat lunges at one and I point the powerhead at the other. Mine turns towards patrick and I let the spear fly. It hits him directly behind his eye and completly fails to go off. I about shit myself. As I watch my brand new spear and patrick's new powerhead descend into the depth I am confronted with the fact that this wasn't going like I'd thought it would.
Fortunately, the bull's both hauled out of there and we were left by ourselve's to get to the surface. At the top, we saw the boat was about 50 yards away and that was about the longes swim I've ever done. We get to the boat with no further harrassment and had the adrenaline rush last for about an hour longer.
I must admit that the second dive that day I had no intention of spearing anything and saw sharks everywhere I looked in the distance.
We brought back 3 red snapper, 1 red grouper, 1 trigger and 1 lobster.

Undertow
07-28-2004, 04:02 PM
What brand PH was it, and was the ammo sealed in any way? Glad to hear you made it back safely. I am not looking forward to my first brown streak inducing shark encounter:(

fishnfool13
07-28-2004, 06:58 PM
They have been bad this year . I had never owned a PH before this summer . Im glad you guys made it back ok with all your toes still attached and your fish still in hand .

LSUBigL
07-28-2004, 10:37 PM
thus far on spearboard i've read about a ton of close encounters with the toothy kind, but they've all just been close encounters. Have any of you guys heard of divers actually getting attacked? Luckily I've only seen sharks on one dive in Louisiana, but we have much worse visibility and something tells me that they are there every dive, but hanging out just out of sight. The time that I saw them was in a rig in about 300+ fsw of water, and most of them were smallish blacktips. We have a fairly thick surface murk during most of the year, and it always is a little freaky to deco in water with 3 foot vis with a bunch of bloody fish hanging around your waist.

good post Letrappes. Glad y'all made it back alright.

Nsearch
07-29-2004, 07:56 AM
Have any of you guys heard of divers actually getting attacked?

Uh.........Hector?? Care to speak up??

Louis Rossignol
07-29-2004, 08:56 AM
My neighbor, Gary Piquet, speared a 40lb. amberjack on the rigs one day 92 years ago) and tied it off with his brand new Riffe to the back of the boat, while getting in the boat an 8ft. bull came up to the amberjack and yanked on him so hard it broke the clip. The bull shark got his fish and gun with that pull. Gary was pissed.

PatMyGreen
07-29-2004, 09:20 AM
Thats about how I remember it going down. I just couldn't for the life of me figure out why Scott wanted my powerhead to shoot a big grouper or AJ (my interpretation of his gesturing). When the bigger shark made it self known to me I thought "cool, hes just passing through." Then I put it all together that maybe that was why Scott wanted to go up so early in the dive. It was pretty cool watching them become more agressive as they realized we weren't giving up our fish. I am afraid that lots of the divers around hear think that that is the propper thing to due, and I would be willing to bet that they just thought we were easy mark for a mugging.
The powerhead was a Ray Odor .223 but I hadn't changed the ammo in over 10 dives so I am not suprised that it didn't fire. I will be religeous about that from now on. I have already ordered the replacement (also Ray Odor) and in no way think it was anything to do with a manufacturer defect.
I have never been happy to have my buddy out shoot me on a dive before, but I felt oddly happy that I only had a shovel nose on my stringer and Scott had 3 red snappers on his.
ps Scott THE SIGN FOR SHARK IS YOUR HAND LIKE A FIN ON TOP OF YOUR HEAD!!!!!!!

PatMyGreen
07-29-2004, 09:26 AM
You wanna go back there tonight for our night dives Scott? I'm sure your friends from Michigan will love it.

ramblin'wreck
07-29-2004, 01:03 PM
Holy cow how many Scotts do we have lurking around on this board anyway? And I thought MY name (Mike) was common.

Glad you guys made it out.

fishnfool13
07-29-2004, 07:05 PM
The other symbol is arms spread wide , followed by fist closed with finger from opposite hand pumping in and out , and then hand on head . The translation is big f'ing shark . It will be in the next PADI manual .

GrumpyDre
07-29-2004, 08:28 PM
Anyone ever heard of a shark going into a rig before???
Just curious..
Thanks

Louis Rossignol
07-29-2004, 11:22 PM
Yeppers, they go into rigs, how you think me and Stan shot em in the past.