Strip away the technology, and we have more akin with the Paleolithic hunter stalking Wooly Mammoths with flint javelins than we do with modern man. Speargun in hand, one hundred and thirty feet below the sea far offshore, and all thoughts of traffic, mortgages, work deadlines, strip malls, home repair, your 401K, property taxes, and bills just don't seem that important anymore.

Guests
Hunt4PinkOctober, Jax Reefsounder, Monster, and their buddy Jeff. This is the second weekend in a row where we have had four guests on the boat instead of the usual five, and I have to say- I LIKE IT. Sure, it will cost little more, but you will more than make up for it with the added elbow room, and diving. The four guys opted to pay for the fifth spot, and divide up the extra six tanks. In addition, we were able to split into two groups of three divers instead of the usual three groups of two, two, and three which made the surface intervals all the shorter. Using the boat's transfill whip, I was able to make nine drops on the six tanks I brought.

Sea Conditions
On the way out Friday it was a rather sloppy 4', but laid down to nothing for the rest of the trip as we approached the MG. The gumbo in the MG is still heavy, but showing signs of breaking up. There are still weird murk layers with thermoclines below that varied in depth and thickness, but we didn't encounter any as bad as Bucket One reported to me Friday as we were underway. The vis inside the MG off the Hatch is much better than in the MG itself....in June, weird!!!

A Pot Of Gold At The Bottom Of The Sea
The guys needed to be back earlier on Sunday so we left Friday to try out some spots 40-60 mi off the Hatch. Everyone got in two rounds of dives which produced numerous nice gags in the 10-15 pound range, and some serious inshore brownsnouter hogs. By the time we began heading to the MG, we already had more gags in the box than the entire trip last weekend.

Mango bite, come on! It's finally here, the summer MG nightime snapper bite is in full effect with the grovers aggressively biting, and full of roe. The only anglers on this trip were Jimmy Z, Hunt4Pink, and myself who enjoyed some pretty heated action with big grovers that averaged five pounds or better. In addition, I can't even begin to count the amount of big pink porgies (2-3 pounds) we caught that basically became pests when they overtook the bite. I also lost a nice king mack that had it's tail severed by a barracuda, and then torn apart by a large bull shark right at the surface Saturday morning.

Despite the gumbo on may of the ledges, it seems as if they are now holding more fish. In an effort to extract a 17# gag out of a cave, I had to expend about five minutes just to clear the seaweed pile in order to get a clear shot. Stringing the fish afterwards, I saw that I was completely covered in gumbo, and probably looked just like Swamp Thing. The tally by close of business Saturday was better than it was last week, but still off by June standards

We pulled the hook very early Sunday morning, and started heading back to the Hatch in order to duplicate our success from Friday afternoon as well as to be closer to the beach when we finshed out the trip. It was a good move since more gags came over the rails with a number of large amberjacks that made the mistake of buzzing the ledge we were diving. So that's it, the bow got pointed notheast, the end of another succesful trip, or so I thought.

We're cruising along when all of a sudden the srceen lights up in red and orange. Jimmy Z spun the JR2 180 degrees like a stunt car from Dukes of Hazzard. Closer investigation revealed a massive Ed Sulivan with large ten foot plus hard relief off the bottom. Those with energy still left scramble to see what's left in their tanks, and both Jax Reefsounder and myself score with tanks at 1800 psi. Within ten seconds of stepping off the dive platform, I knew that we had found the pot of gold at the bottom of the sea. In midwater as far as the eye could see in every direction were spiraling swarms of large amberjack. Barracuda hung montionless like logs just under the surface as rainbow runners swam chaotically through the pods of monster permit swimming away rapidly, spooked by our bubbles. As I tried to focus on this incredible scene, preparing myself for the inevitable sensory shock I would receive when I actually hit the bottom, I noticed that just on the edge of visibilty were blacktip sharks, LOTS OF THEM! Pucker fatcor five.

If there is a spearfishing heaven and hell, I think I visited both simultaneously upon hitting the bottom. The remains of a very large shrimper or fishing trawler that looked like it had been there on the bottom some time appeared in our vision covered in an amount of reef fish that I have not seen on one spot in over fourteen years of spearfishing. Gags, mangos over ten pounds, red snappers over twenty erratically swimming 10'-20' over the wreck, and big inshore hogs (yes, on a wreck!!) completely covered the structure which did not have an inch of mono, wire, or anything to indicate that this had ever been visited. Spearfishing heaven. As I readied for my first of what I thought would be a record amount of shots I noticed the grey shapes. Circling the wreck were a half dozen reef/sandbar sharks averaging 6' in length. Sharks on the wreck, a school of blacktips up top, pucker factor ten, spearfishing hell. In my haste to get ready, I had only brought down one of my 7.62mm "Russian Bodyguard" powerheads so needless to say I took extremely careful stone shots to keep from starting a greysuit frenzy. I was also genuinely concerned for the safety of Jax Reefsounder who I think mistook my u/w signal of "holy sh*t we're surrounded by sharks!" to mean "holy sh*t we're surrounded by fish!". I did manage a nice gag, a monster mango, and a brownsnouter in our few minutes of bottom time while keeping cover for Jax, and trying to grow a third eye on the back of my head. Pretty disappointing results, but the wreck isn't going anywhere.

Upon surfacing, Jimmy Z saw my face, and knew exactly what the deal was. As we headed in, he spoke with many of the heavy-hitter commercial hook and liners, none of whom had the number, or knew of a wreck being in that area. I'm counting down the minutes before I can go back. This time I'm going to look a bandoliered Mexican bandit with the amount of powerheads I'm bringing down

The Jolly Rogers is going to be doing a few hook and line trips here in the upcoming weeks with the next dive trip being one hosted by Scott MacPherson on July 30. What do you say Scott, you, me, two stringers each, and a fist full of powerhead rounds somewhere between the Hatch and the MG ? Standing by.

AJ Suarez
 

No slaytistics due to not wanting to give off the wrong impression that we had a bad trip because we didn't. Of the four guests, two were trophy hunters that were just looking for the big one, and only Hunt4Pink hook and line fished for any length of time the entire weekend. All of which is OK. Hell, if you paid for the charter you can choose do do whatever you want. The crew limited out (two day rec limit) on grouper, limited on mangos, got a couple jacks, and around 15-20 hogs if you must know.