Story time... Commercial Spearfishing Trip Gone "Bad"...

[Noah]

 Don't know what made me think of this driving home from work today... but was an interesting trip I did a few years ago...

... So... there was this captain needing a "ruthless killer" to help fill the fish box on a 3 day commercial spearfishing trip off the west coast of Florida... quite naturally he called me      ... now the cool thing about shooting for commercial boats is that they carry a license that, basically, allows them to kill a certain total weight of fish per yr... where normally, as a recreational shooter, you are limited to a handful of fish which is your limit... major downer    ... Having done these before, I was happy to agree... all I had to do(theoretically  ) was enjoy the ride, and kill as much chit as I could... "This is gonna be fun" I told myself as I packed my gear, kissed my wife, and headed for the dock... (man she's put up with a lot from me over the years  )

     My crew was an odd assembly of charter captain/scuba/freedive background men, only one of which I had dove with before... I think there ended up being 6 of us for the trip... aboard the "Miss Jacky", a 45', single screw diesel ex-long line boat... was a fairly new boat with good stance and full electronics... With a cruising speed of about 10knots, it would take us 6-7hrs to get to the fishing grounds...  It was late summer/early fall, warm, quiet skies that afternoon as we pulled away from the dock... spearguns bristling off the stern of the boat as we headed into the blue...

     We were headed out 50-60 miles off of Hudson, which was only about 75' at the deepest point.  The boat had been rigged with a 4 person "hooka" system(which I was real hesitant about...) by which a main compressor mounted on the boat fed 4 several hundred foot long "hoses" with a regulator mouthpiece at the end by which we breathed at depth with...  Although I am an experienced scuba diver, I prefer to freedive... but for the purpose of maximum production, I went along with the whole "hooka" deal  ... There can be multiple complications diving with hooka at depth which I knew... and the others would soon learn 

     On the way out, it was almost evening... starting to get dark,(which I have always tried to avoid diving in, as the sharks start to feed about this time....) we ran over some good bottom in about 30' of water and decided to shoot some dinner/get a head start on filling the "coffin" before settling in for the twilight cruise to our destination...

     Always first in the water, I quickly began to lay waste to the grouper/snapper/sheephead that kept swimming in front of my gun  ...  As the malay continued, the sun continued to set... and it got darker and darker after each shot... but I pushed on   

.... about that time I saw him....

.. give your eyes a break while I have dinner with my girls 

[SCHitemHard]

... wait wait hey hey hey

what the hell noah i just took my boots off and got comfy for nothin.... enjoy time with the ladies

[Noah]

SO... it's getting dark quick like, I am in a cloud of sand on my knees... sand kicked up by a thrashing grouper that I am wrestling with while trying to jab my stainless stringer through his eye sockets so as he can join his friends... 

... out of the corner of my eye I spy something real big and toothy at about arm's length... I "very carefully" turn my head to see a large(8-9') BullShark has come in and "paused"(never good when they do this) to decide whether he wanted to come in for a bite or not...     ... as we sat there looking at each other, time almost stood still as we stared into each other's eyes... it was if he was almost "weighing" the consequences of what it was he was considering... with speargun discharged/shaft still in the grouper, there was no way to attach my powerhead to defend myself as I usually would... so I reached for my "sharp stick"(dive knife haha) on my leg and by the time I looked back in his direction he had dissappeared into the darkness...

.... now there is no way to describe the feeling that comes over you when you know there is a big ass shark thinking about "engaging" you and you don't know where he is...  I thought about ditching my stringer of fish and hauling ass to the boat... but stupidity made me hold on to it as I rose, slowly towards the surface... spinning in circles as I went... waiting for him to make his move...

... as I hit the surface, I saw the boat a good 100' from me... with all the other guys already in it... frantically giving me the "shark" signal(open hand on top of head) and urging me to get in the boat as they had been chased out of the water by an aggressive Bull 20 minutes ago...   GREAT.   

... was a long surface swim back to the boat with my bleeding stringer of dead fish attached to my side... I promise you

.... made it back to the boat without incedent thank God, cooked up our fish sandwiches and headed deeper as the moon began to rise on the now, slick calm Gulf of Mexico... 

... the calm before the storm... 

[SCHitemHard]

noah if you ever want me to type up a biography for you let me know

[Silverton Boar Dogs]

  don't stop now

[Noah]

HAHA, it's easier for me to get it out on here than it is to wright it down on paper lol.... as long as this website never crashes maybe someday I can have somebody compile all my idiotic adventures into some sort of weird children's book lol... 

don't stop now

I'm not, still typing... 

[SCHitemHard]

noah i have a program that you can talk into the mic and whatever you say will show up typed up and formatted

[Purebreedcolt]

Dang you noah I'm not good with intermissions lol hurry

[SCHitemHard]

no kiddin, 5 AM comes early for this kid over here

[Noah]

    Made it to the grounds about midnight... plan was to hit the water at daylight and commence ta killin'....     ...We could see from the fish-finder/bottom machine, we were over good structure with alot of fish... so, quite naturally, my adrenaline started pumping and I stayed up for a while catching sharks on rod and reel while everybody else went to sleep  ... got a few hrs of shut eye in before the pre-dawn breeze woke me up...  Wetsuit already on(  ), I hopped in the water while everyone else was getting suited up and began to wreak havoc on the bottom... for the next 12 hrs we dove straight, surfacing only to decompress and dump our catch, before heading back down for more... was a great day...

... Next morning, we were in about 70'... I was on the bottom, working an undercut ledge which held some nice Mangrove Snapper... about that time I heard the engine crank up... 

... One of the crew had decided he thought it would be a good idea to "motor over" a few hundred yds to another patch of reef... what he neglected to take into account however... was the FACT that there were 3 divers still down... 3 divers attached to flimsy, rubber air hoses dragging precariously close to the boat's propeller...

... As soon as I heard him kick it in gear I knew what would happen... I felt my hose come immediately tight, and took one more big breath.......

.......... as the hose wrapped around the propeller... cutting off my only air supply at 70'(compressed air mind you)...  Not good.

... Now when you dive compressed air at depth, your body absorbs nitrogen gas into your bloodstream... not dangerous at depth, but if you come up too quickly(like if you ran out of air lol)... the bubbles come out of solution, rupture blood vessels internally.... sometimes resulting in death... 

... again, was a long, painful rise to the surface...  beginning to see a patern at this point...    climbed aboard the boat for a "discussion" about moving with divers down.... before re-entering the water to try and salvage the hoses from the prop...

... got everything straightened out and we all got back to shooting, grinding away at filling the coffin...

.... I believe it was about 4pm that afternoon when the wind first started to really blow... 

[Noah]

... now... unto this point, I had "assumed" I was with a group of "competent" seamen... but some of the "situations" that had already arisen had me starting to wonder...    ... Having already assessed the boat, I knew(worst case scenario mind you)  "I" could defenitely make it back to shore if push came to shove lol...(strange how survival instinct makes one think...  )....

     The "captain" already had me on edge... coming out of the harbor, he had almost taken out a dock on the way out... and just seemed a tad "nervous" behind the helm to say the least... but... being "his" ship(and me being a complete stranger to him and guest), I sat back, kept my mouth shut, and just watched... saying nothing... as he(along with his friends) was quite cocky... and keen to "appear" as though he knew what he was doing... so I allowed them to pretend for a while... lol 

.... back to 4pm/wind starting to blow...

     Now, here was my one big mistake on this trip... I pride myself on being ever aware of the situations that I get myself into... I do not care to trust anyone with my wellbeing if you know what I mean...  This time, however, I had neglected to look at the 3-day weather forecast... assuming....(never assume kids)... that the "captain" would have thought to do so, before green lighting the trip...

     .... I assumed wrong....     .... Had I looked at the 3-day, I would have seen that an early, STRONG, back-door front was carreening towards us from EAST TEXAS LOL.... carrying with it, gale force winds before, and after it.... along with high seas potentially capable of putting our vessel in a bad way...

   The sun was starting to get low in the sky that afternoon... Having come up to dump fish, I noticed the increase in seas as I climbed aboard... one look at the sky, and I knew it was about to get ugly...  At this point, the seas had built to probably 2-3' in the matter of a half hour... and the wind was cranking out of the east at about 20knts.... so I knew it was only gonna get worse...  Got our last diver in the boat and came to a decision it was time to batton down the hatches and haul ass back to shore... into the ever increasing white caps now throwing spray over the bow...  This was not gonna be a pretty ride home at 10 knts for 6 hours...

.... about an hour into it, it had finally become pitch dark... driving rain, we slowly pounded into the now 6-9 footers, occasionally taking one over the bow and cockpit... with that un-nerving sound of heavy water crashing onto the rear deck... the wind had now increased to 30knts +.... it was getting real, real quick...

[dub]

Now is when you should take a nap. 'you might need the rest for a long swim

[Noah]

... now at this point I had become hungry, so I fixed myself a sandwich and cracked me a Bud Light as I often do when embarking on an impending catastrophe lol...

... as I sat behind the "captain" in the dim light of the radar screen, I watched as the first of the crew ran for the back deck to blow chunks...  ... was not long and all but the "captain" and I were all that remained standing... as the rest were incapacitated on the deck with sea-sickness... not a pretty thing to see, but see it many times I have...

... about then I saw "el capitan" start to gettin' weak at the knees... I knew what was about to happen before he did lol...  "Why don't you sit down and let me steer for a bit" I said... .... he quickly replied, "NO, I can't... this isn't my boat and I don't know you well enough to turn her over to you.... I can make it...".... about a minute later his legs buckeled and he ran to the back, spraying vomit out both sides of his mouth as he went 

... I cracked me another beer and settled into my captain's chair for the evening... 

(speaking of beer...  ) 

[Noah]

... as he staggered back up to the helm, I could see on his face that he was done.... I barely managed to get him to show me how this particular gps worked, and what sea-buoy we were aiming for, before he joined the other fallen on the deck, towels over their heads, puking on themselves...

... it truly is scary to see what true sea-sickness can do to even the most strong willed person... We were taking 12footers over the bow at this point.. water was backwashing up into the cockpit... literally soaking these numb-nuts... and they could not have cared less... if the boat had begun to sink, they would have gone down with it.   Sea-sick to the point that you completely give up... crazy chit that I have only seen once thank God.

... I continued East... knowing that the closer I could get to shore, the less fetch the swell would be able to build at me...  completely blind at this point, I was able to get the radar turned on... which, truthfully, was of no use at this stage... the peaks of the waves were so high that it rendered the radar useless for the first 25 miles... I had only a spotlight by which to see a short distance ahead in the driving rain/spray should I encounter another vessel... which I knew there were many large shrimp boats anchored in the vicinity... 

... Had one close call, was fooling with the squelch on the radar and noticed a "pattern" of wave peaks that seemed to be staying in the same vicinity... directly in front of me... steered hard away... barely missing a PITCH BLACK/NO LIGHTS 100' long sleeping shrimper .... I guess that was about 1am that morning... 

.... 4am.... listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd... beer in hand.... slick calm water(wind still howling out of the east)... I knew I was getting close to shore...  GPS said I was coming up on the main channel... what should have been about 15' of water...

... about that time, I hear a "bang-bang-bang-bang-bang..." coming from the prop.... I quickly pull her out of gear, as everyone jumps up from their puke-induced stupor to see what had happened... shining a light over the side... what had been a solid 15' of water, was now a mere 5' and we had run aground... stuck solid, still miles offshore 

... The prolonged easterly high winds had literally "blown" the water away from the coast, effectively creating a "super-low-tide".... we sat there until 10 the next morning... waiting for the wind to die down and the tide to come back in...

... What had taken 6hrs to make out to, had taken over EIGHT hours to get back in the strong head-sea... good thing I brought extra beer 

Once at the dock... nothing was said.  I smiled as I unloaded my gear and some fish... the crew could not look me in the eyes however...  They know.

[redcur]

 

[dub]

I almost got a 65' boat for a super price. I would just have to bring it across the Pacific Ocean. I guess if I find a deal like that again I know who to call to help go get it

[JDJP]

Good story, I've never been full blown sick, but I've felt bad before, and seen many people have to stick it out all day, and its miserable. And I know its a whole different ballgame on the west coast, it chops up quick, and the periods are real close together so its real choppy, instead of the swell out here.

[Noah]

HAHA, sounds fun    ... there's actually been many times I've had to "take the controls" of another man's boat over the years lol...

People think they know what they are doing 'till the seas get a lil' chitty and then they get "that look" in their eyes... "deer in the headlights" look HAHA 

Was out with a wealthy concrete contractor in a 30' Yellowfin with quad 300's  a few yrs ago off the east coast... weather can get chitty REAL quick over there...  and it did....  40miles out, same deal... wind started quartering to us from the shoreline.... built the seas up to solid 5-8's in no time... dude tried to go straight line back to the inlet(quartering into the swell)... about threw us all out of the boat at one point...

... "you want me to drive for a bit?" I says.... let's just say he didn't argue...  (He had turned ghost white at this point and I think he peed himself a little bit... HAHA 

... I pointed that big bitch dead on into the swell and put the hammer down on those 4 ponies!!!  MAN, what a boat... skipped across the tops of those rollers all the way to shore(20miles north of the inlet grant you    )... and proceeded to ride the beach all the way back down to the inlet...  seamanship 101...   

[JDJP]

Man I see those yellowfin go by all the time at work. If I ever won the lottery id get one. Giant flair in the bow like a little buddy Davis.

Let me know if you'd wanna go try and catch a sword one day, ill set it up.

[Noah]

Hell yeah!  Where do yall leave out of?  What's the biggest one yall have caught?  Any difference in quality of fishing day vs night?