ROCK BOTTOM
10-30-2003, 01:24 PM
The gods are smilling on me today.
Departed Venice at 0700 on my 25' Parker with 12 tanks and three friends for a day of fun in the sun in Main Pass. Ran Baptiste Collette out to the Gulf of Mexico and shagged ass for 30 plus miles to MP299. We had beautiful skies, no fog and only a slight breeze as we made our way across the 1 foot seas on our way to slay some fish.
We dove two rigs in MP299 diving down to 171' and 163' hunting for the big ones. On the first dive, Hell Diver Henry Pacheco, prospective member John Sutton and myself plunged in and raced to the fish. I was the first to shoot. Seeing a ball of fish below me, I moved in, spotting a smallish cobia. I began tapping my clip on my barrel trying to gain the cobia's attention as he moved away from me when a nice black grouper appeared about fifteen feet to my right. I fired a quick shot that busted him up pretty good, but he had some fight in him. I worked him up to about 115' and was looking down on Henry and John in the 80' viz as they both took out some decent sized AJs. We then moved to another nearby rig and made a dive to 163'. All three of us shot nice gag grouper and headed back to the boat.
With two deep dives behind us we moved west for some snapper in the 150' range. We tied up to MP138 where I saw some nice snapper three weeks earlier. We started rodnreeling the red snapper and ended up with ten total. While there we also had a hookup with a large fish that stripped off approx. 150 yards of line before we were able to untie and chase it down. We ended up breaking off the fish but from the way he fought I deduce that it was a hammerhead in the 250-300# range. By the time we returned to the rig, a supply boat had pulled up and kept us from diving that rig to shoot some red snapper.
We headed further in and made our next stop at MP41 and approx. 45' of water. The viz was about 20 feet but faded in and out down to 5 feet. We were looking for some cobia but didn't see any on this rig. Henry and John got themselves a few mangroves. I shot a barely legal gag and while stringing him up, saw a red grouper under some pipes. I replaced my shaft, cocked one band and blunt shafted him, pinning him to the bottom. Then while putting him on the stringer, I noticed the gag had gotten off, bummer. We made a large circle in the boat looking for some good water to dive but the first rig was the only one not in the milky green crap. Fortunately it was a triple rig so we tied up to a different segment and made out final dive. Henry and John shot a few more mangroves and I lucked out and got a shot on a nice pompano and a nice mangrove.
For anyone who has never dove the rigs off of Louisiana, It is hard to describe the volume of fish that I swam with on these rigs. Grouper, snapper, trigger fish, sheepshead, hardtails, spadefish, bluefish, lookdowns, ladyfish, mullet, catfish, redfish, drum .... These fish swarm around you in huge numbers. If they wanted, a diver could sit down there with a medium sized gun with a paralyzer tip and slay fish with impunity.
For the day this was our total:
1 black grouper
2 amberjack
3 gag grouper
1 red grouper
10 red snapper
11 mangrove snapper
1 trigger fish
1 pompano
On the trip back to the marina the seas laid down to almost flat calm. God loves his "special children."
Zzzzz
Departed Venice at 0700 on my 25' Parker with 12 tanks and three friends for a day of fun in the sun in Main Pass. Ran Baptiste Collette out to the Gulf of Mexico and shagged ass for 30 plus miles to MP299. We had beautiful skies, no fog and only a slight breeze as we made our way across the 1 foot seas on our way to slay some fish.
We dove two rigs in MP299 diving down to 171' and 163' hunting for the big ones. On the first dive, Hell Diver Henry Pacheco, prospective member John Sutton and myself plunged in and raced to the fish. I was the first to shoot. Seeing a ball of fish below me, I moved in, spotting a smallish cobia. I began tapping my clip on my barrel trying to gain the cobia's attention as he moved away from me when a nice black grouper appeared about fifteen feet to my right. I fired a quick shot that busted him up pretty good, but he had some fight in him. I worked him up to about 115' and was looking down on Henry and John in the 80' viz as they both took out some decent sized AJs. We then moved to another nearby rig and made a dive to 163'. All three of us shot nice gag grouper and headed back to the boat.
With two deep dives behind us we moved west for some snapper in the 150' range. We tied up to MP138 where I saw some nice snapper three weeks earlier. We started rodnreeling the red snapper and ended up with ten total. While there we also had a hookup with a large fish that stripped off approx. 150 yards of line before we were able to untie and chase it down. We ended up breaking off the fish but from the way he fought I deduce that it was a hammerhead in the 250-300# range. By the time we returned to the rig, a supply boat had pulled up and kept us from diving that rig to shoot some red snapper.
We headed further in and made our next stop at MP41 and approx. 45' of water. The viz was about 20 feet but faded in and out down to 5 feet. We were looking for some cobia but didn't see any on this rig. Henry and John got themselves a few mangroves. I shot a barely legal gag and while stringing him up, saw a red grouper under some pipes. I replaced my shaft, cocked one band and blunt shafted him, pinning him to the bottom. Then while putting him on the stringer, I noticed the gag had gotten off, bummer. We made a large circle in the boat looking for some good water to dive but the first rig was the only one not in the milky green crap. Fortunately it was a triple rig so we tied up to a different segment and made out final dive. Henry and John shot a few more mangroves and I lucked out and got a shot on a nice pompano and a nice mangrove.
For anyone who has never dove the rigs off of Louisiana, It is hard to describe the volume of fish that I swam with on these rigs. Grouper, snapper, trigger fish, sheepshead, hardtails, spadefish, bluefish, lookdowns, ladyfish, mullet, catfish, redfish, drum .... These fish swarm around you in huge numbers. If they wanted, a diver could sit down there with a medium sized gun with a paralyzer tip and slay fish with impunity.
For the day this was our total:
1 black grouper
2 amberjack
3 gag grouper
1 red grouper
10 red snapper
11 mangrove snapper
1 trigger fish
1 pompano
On the trip back to the marina the seas laid down to almost flat calm. God loves his "special children."
Zzzzz