Announcing a KILLER Concept! The Spearboard Best Trip Report Challenge!

[miguelitro]

can't wait to post up my trip and be recognized as wheat, wait chaff...well i just hope to contribute to a great board! thanks
Mike

[Itchy Trigger]

YOu can pretty much pick any Shark Tales post and call it top notch! Those guys have THE most consistant and amazing posts of anyone on here!

[Louis Rossignol]

Well it's that time of year, and what's the Hell Diver's Rodeo without another close call.

Really nothing went wrong, and it almost all went right, but here it is.

We get to this rig, the depth finder has it at 358' deep. We all jump in, I'm just dropping and loving life, and by the time I hit around 180 I feel all alone for a change. This is a beautiful rig and we've gotten some huge red snappers off of it in the past, so I'm still dropping. Somewhere around 220' I see a big ass grouper, so I speed up in his direction and he comes straight up to me offering me forehead shot which I refuse, (lost too many like that). I wait for the fish to turn almost broadside, and smack the shit out of him in the head. Usually warsaw's are sluggish when they take off, not this one. He sucks me down on the pipe, so without even thinking about it, I clip his ass to the rig. I made sure he was cool where he was and I left him, knowing where he would be when I came back to retrieve him.

Just before leaving him, I checked my depth gauge, 235'.

I get on the boat, and know that I have to wait an hour. And let me tell you, it just sucks, knowing you have to go back to 235' to retrieve a big fish.

Mark Peart and David Hood agree to follow me down when we go. We jump back in one hour later, and I start buzzing on down. I never did get narced or so I didn't notice, but I remember thinking, Damn, the water is dirtier than when I shot the fish, I pull my depth gauge up and see, 260', wait, that's not right, it's gotta be 160', I pull my gauge up again, 270', hold on, is that a 2 or a 1. Holy Shit, I'm at 270. I turn around, and haul ass back up to 235' find the rope, grab my fish and haul ass up to start my decompression.

All I can say is I ****ed up, and maybe if I hadn't checked my gauge, I might have kept going down. I could have passed out with O2 poisoning and died. I hate that thought. At 20' while decompressing, I start to buddy breath with another person on the boat who stayed up higher in the water column, Jackson Wilson when my pressure got to 500psi. I sucked his air for a while, and then put my reg back into my mouth before going to the boat.

I got on the boat, drank a Guinness and took too excedrins to be on the safe side.

I made it, and I'm fine, but it sure scared the fuk out of me.
__________________________________________________ _

Other than the bullshit above, did I mention, on the pic with the Almaco Jacks, since Amberjack is out of season, why mine is so chewed up. I get to the boat, and tie mine off to the cleat on the back of the boat and wait till everyone gets in and gets their shit off before I clutter the boat even more. They all come back with lobsters, (out of season) and not just your ordinary lobsters, Mark, David and Jackson come back with 3 of the biggest lobsters you've ever seen, like 10+ pounders. I tell them, "guys, they are out of season, yall need to put them back". They're pissed but they do what I tell them, meanwhile I finally get my Almaco Jack up and the sharks tore his ass up. Marks Almaco weighed 44, mine weighed 41.5 after a bunch of meat was taken out of him. They were 1st and 2nd of the tourney.

Next, my crew mauled the 25-27lb. snappers, Wil lost a 100lb. Cubera, and David lost a 100lb. warsaw.

On the last day, we took 4 tanks a piece and the air compressor, I didn't think these guys ever wanted to come home. And just to piss Mark off, what I said after I landed my big warsaw, was, "I got my fish now, let's go home". Sure way to piss off the big guy, even though I was just kidding.

The RokZone won Best Boat and my crew was awesome. A trip I'll remember for a long time, even though quite a bit of drinking was involved.

The final pic is what the moon looks like on the RokZone.

Alright Tony, quit fukin' around, where's my prize?

[SpearMax]

Originally Posted by Louis Rossignol

Alright Tony, quit fukin' around, where's my prize?

Sure Rok, I will second the nomination when the time is right. I think this great report qualifies for next quarter's voting.

I make a copy of it right here for next quarter's nominations.

http://www.spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=126830

Good job Louis!

[DiveGal]

I know the BBO made this contest take a back seat. But now that it's over, let's get this ball rolling again!

[SpearMax]

Originally Posted by DiveGal

I know the BBO made this contest take a back seat. But now that it's over, let's get this ball rolling again!

I am juicing it up a bit.

I found some cool blue spear-shaped trophies I can have winner's names engraved on and I am thinking of adding something to the prize pool. Should be up and running the voting polls this week.

[DiveGal]

Those are awesome Tony!

[DVD]