Guests
Topshotta, Megabeast, King Chaos, and JD Odom. Lots of elbow room on
this four man trip, and quick rotations for maximum carnage!
Finally got to dive with Megabeast (Tommy Downey) who runs the
Jacksonville Scuba Center (www.jaxscubacenter.com) after several blown
out attempts. It was good seeing everyone else as well.....
Sea Conditions
Very bizarre vis this trip. It started out about as good as it gets
with bluewater top to bottom vis so crystal clear that you could make
out fish swimming 100' below while on a deco stop down to hazy 20' snot
just a mile away. Water temps were 83*, but on some spots there was a
thermocline down to the mid seventies just in the first 5' above the
bottom .
Slay Report
It's getting harder trying to find novel ways of reporting shooting
the hell out of fish. Beat some mango ass, gags in more abundant numbers
than one would think for this time of the year, plenty of red snapper,
plenty of hogs, and amberjack that have made a disappearing act. I shot
around a 15# carbo, and had an estimated 60-80 pounder within eyesight a
minute later that wouldn't let me get within SS Sea Hornet range .
That's about it in a nutshell. Oh, sharks a-plenty with a teenage mako
buzzing during one of my first dives, and a pair of amped up duskies
paying individual visits to Megabeast, King Chaos, and myself on the
same ledge being among some of the more exciting encounters. Megabeast
subsequently advised them of his platform position regarding apex
predators .
The most memorable image of the trip of the trip really has nothing to
do with spearfishing. Late night we are fishing for grovers in flat calm
seas after all the guests have gone into post dive suspended animation.
Off in far distance to the east there was a tremendous lightning storm
where I would estimate five hundred strikes in just an hour. This
created a strobe light effect in the new moon pitch black to the scene
of a pod of spotted bottlenose dolphins absolutely working the flying
fish that were attracted to the spreader lights. Add in the noisy
surface crashes and breathing of the dolphins, and you have one surreal
MG experience. Standing by...
AJ Suarez
