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View Full Version : Never use old bullets


SANDIBOTTOM
06-27-2003, 09:05 PM
6/25/03....Off carrabelle a good ways out (notice I didn't say how far) to a new spring which held alot of box size jacks and several hundred large mango's..I had my oldest sun with me who is 13 years old and we use the xios boat finders underwater comms...The vis was about 40 - 50 ft on this spot..I had filled up one stringer and starting on next when a large Bull came in to have a snack..I shot him right away after he had made his first pass and started his second run...The Power head did not go off...I reloaded my shaft thinking that I didn't hit him hard enough and shot him on the forth pass and it still did not go off...This time as he came by he grabbed my buddy's stringer which was also loaded with fish and ran about 30 - 40 ft and dropped it ....my friend grabbed his stringer back and headed straight up...I looked at my xios unit and it said the boat was 119 ft away..The wind had shifted and had swung the boat alittle further from the spring...I told my son" let's head to the boat,,,We went right to our drop line and headed up to the top... we were on our safety stop when three dolphin swam by us on the anchor line...There goes the idea about sharks and dolphins....My oldest son had pushed the shark off just once when we were on the bottom and he never paniced at all ..... He said it was an exciting dive,, Mean while the shark which my buddy said was over 10 ft long chased him all the way back to the boat... If you get a bullet wet trash it and don't try and save it for another day.....On our very next dive we had other shark problems loosing a shaft to another bull shark...On our first dive we had our lines attached to our gun because of the size of mango's and when shot free shaft they would swim into the spring...other wise we would just have lost a shaft into the the big bull..In all total at the end of the day we had 4 sharks who wanted the free lunch program but all were sadly disapointed.....:D

bristolxyz
06-30-2003, 06:44 PM
I am in the habit of tossing the bullets after they get wet too. Even if you paint them good, it's not worth it when you need them to defend yourself, but then again, I'm not gonna fight a bull shark for my fish.
Last month, I was diving the gap in Marathon with a buddy. I left a few good size hogs on the stringer attached to the anchor rope. I was just hanging around the anchor rope doing a bit of sight seeing and waiting on my buddy. I turn around and there are two good sized green moray eels about to start tearing the crap out of my hogs!
I grabbed the stringer and tried to move it up the rope a bit to detach it and at the same time thinking that they would not free swim and fight me for the fish. I was wrong, I got a nasty bite on the left tricep...right thru the suit. Left a pretty good bruise, and hurt like hell, but didn't break the skin.
I had to smack the other one with the butt of my gun.
All the while, my buddy is watching the whole thing and had a good laugh during stop.
That's the first and only time I've been bitten by anything under water (other than getting stung or scraped).
Wasn't really scary, but I just remember thinking about keeping it away from my exposed skin, esp my face.