fishkilla
05-20-2003, 07:48 PM
Howdie Folks,
Once again I made the lovely 6 hr truck run south through some off the most beautiful nothing in our state. I'm still amazed at how much muck water grass/cypress stands/pterydactle size masquitos is in the Everglades. I always take 41/Tamiami Trail instead of Aligator Alley. Your chances of breaking down and getting sucked dry from masquitos just isn't the same with the ever present tow truck service on Alligator Alley.
I achieved Sugarloaf Key destination by 6pm on Friday and promptly left with Keyspearfisher toward the Adaulphus Busch wreck just a few miles offshore in 110ft of water. We dropped down at around 9pm. The whole experience almost made my head explode. My eyes were bombarded by an undersea experience of mass exitement proportions. It was a full moon and the water was almost crystal. Without lights on you could see the entire silouwet of the boat. I've got some video of it and it will be up soon.
We reached shore around 2 am and was in bead by 3. Like true slaying zombies we rose at 7am and headed to the back country for some mango snappa action. The vis was bad so we spent most of the time feeding the cudas our undersized catch as we tried to release the shorts. We had 6 large cudas behind our boat the whole time that scooped up nearly everything we let go.
Day three came with a stiff breeze but also much anticipation for what would come. Keyspearfisher, Keezdiver, and I bounced out to the Thunderbolt off of Marathon. We freedove the wreck for a while and admired the jewfish, tarpon, and huge school of permit. After no success at tankless shafting we strapped on the steel and started slinging as well. I video taped half of my first dive with great results in the 100+ ft of visability while keyspearfisher bent a shaft on a 60+ lb true black. That's a yarn I will leave for him to tell. He headed back to the boat with his weeee high pressure air tank and I followed to trade a video camera for a gun. I couldn't film the big yellowtail snapper anymore I had to start killing things. Thanks to the inovations of a 98 lp steel topped off with a mighty 3600 psi and a sweet 34 mix of oxygen I was greenlighted to head back down with a little over 1700 psi. Of course I knew I was about to see some nice fish with half a tank. Brian explained to me what happend with his black that he lost so I went down with specific instructions to seek and destroy. I vowed to search high and low for his mighty leviathan but could not find the grouper of mass proportions. What I did find was truely a Florida Keys treasure. As I was poking around the bottom of the wreck I came around to the propelors and found a massive snouter hog just sitting behind one of the blades. Knowing that this would just make Brians loss that much more painful I stonned the little piggie and came around the other side of the ship. Now black grouper can be a trickie species especially around wrecks that are dove every single day. To the starboard of the ship sits a large piece of bridge rubble that a black had tucked into and was running parallel about to take off to the bow of the boat. He had to pop out sometime so I lead him and popped him. Silly grouper tricks are for kids. He ran over to the ship were I strung him and pick up a nice riff shaft. (if anyone is looking for a riff shaft give me a bid on it and i'll put it in the mail) Back to the boat for an interval of video and bragging then back down for more slaying. I picked off two more blackies. All of them went over 15lbs. With a 13lb hog that's a heck of a day on a well known dive location.
It was a great trip, I'm home safe and new video will be up soon. Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out the web site for the latest and greatest of Fishkilla Productions.
Once again I made the lovely 6 hr truck run south through some off the most beautiful nothing in our state. I'm still amazed at how much muck water grass/cypress stands/pterydactle size masquitos is in the Everglades. I always take 41/Tamiami Trail instead of Aligator Alley. Your chances of breaking down and getting sucked dry from masquitos just isn't the same with the ever present tow truck service on Alligator Alley.
I achieved Sugarloaf Key destination by 6pm on Friday and promptly left with Keyspearfisher toward the Adaulphus Busch wreck just a few miles offshore in 110ft of water. We dropped down at around 9pm. The whole experience almost made my head explode. My eyes were bombarded by an undersea experience of mass exitement proportions. It was a full moon and the water was almost crystal. Without lights on you could see the entire silouwet of the boat. I've got some video of it and it will be up soon.
We reached shore around 2 am and was in bead by 3. Like true slaying zombies we rose at 7am and headed to the back country for some mango snappa action. The vis was bad so we spent most of the time feeding the cudas our undersized catch as we tried to release the shorts. We had 6 large cudas behind our boat the whole time that scooped up nearly everything we let go.
Day three came with a stiff breeze but also much anticipation for what would come. Keyspearfisher, Keezdiver, and I bounced out to the Thunderbolt off of Marathon. We freedove the wreck for a while and admired the jewfish, tarpon, and huge school of permit. After no success at tankless shafting we strapped on the steel and started slinging as well. I video taped half of my first dive with great results in the 100+ ft of visability while keyspearfisher bent a shaft on a 60+ lb true black. That's a yarn I will leave for him to tell. He headed back to the boat with his weeee high pressure air tank and I followed to trade a video camera for a gun. I couldn't film the big yellowtail snapper anymore I had to start killing things. Thanks to the inovations of a 98 lp steel topped off with a mighty 3600 psi and a sweet 34 mix of oxygen I was greenlighted to head back down with a little over 1700 psi. Of course I knew I was about to see some nice fish with half a tank. Brian explained to me what happend with his black that he lost so I went down with specific instructions to seek and destroy. I vowed to search high and low for his mighty leviathan but could not find the grouper of mass proportions. What I did find was truely a Florida Keys treasure. As I was poking around the bottom of the wreck I came around to the propelors and found a massive snouter hog just sitting behind one of the blades. Knowing that this would just make Brians loss that much more painful I stonned the little piggie and came around the other side of the ship. Now black grouper can be a trickie species especially around wrecks that are dove every single day. To the starboard of the ship sits a large piece of bridge rubble that a black had tucked into and was running parallel about to take off to the bow of the boat. He had to pop out sometime so I lead him and popped him. Silly grouper tricks are for kids. He ran over to the ship were I strung him and pick up a nice riff shaft. (if anyone is looking for a riff shaft give me a bid on it and i'll put it in the mail) Back to the boat for an interval of video and bragging then back down for more slaying. I picked off two more blackies. All of them went over 15lbs. With a 13lb hog that's a heck of a day on a well known dive location.
It was a great trip, I'm home safe and new video will be up soon. Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out the web site for the latest and greatest of Fishkilla Productions.