I woke to the macaw's screeches as the sun peeked out from over the gulf. Danny and I had a quick breakfast and full of anticipation, set out down the beach for Van's. Once there I began to prep my gear as Van came out of the house to get his longboard so he could paddle over to where his boat was anchored. "People don't shoot the Parrot fish here", Van said. He turned to Danny, "Are you fishing?" Danny replied brightly, "I'm here for support, whatever needs to be done". That's when Van dropped the bomb. "Yeah well the boats pretty full so we don't really need any help." I was floored. Right then and there Van sent Danny home.
A few minutes later as I was rigging my speargun he came over to tell me I would have to shoot for smaller fish from the surface. Apparently the big ones were too deep and he had lost a spear shooting at them the other day. Again I was stunned, here he is watching me wrap 400 lb. test mono that attaches the spear to my gun, how am I going to loose a spear? Not wanting to sound patronizing I tried to explain my set up as if I were proud of it. The mono is about 15 feet long, I have a 75 ft. float line attached to the end of my gun with an inflatable float at the end of that so I can dive down shoot, and if necessary, let go of the works and pull it in from the surface. Then I see that Van's speargun has no mono or line of any kind. Van, now realizing how not to loose his equipment turns to Nick, one of his guests that will be accompanying us, and instructs him to tie a boat bumper to the spear in his gun.
A few minutes later Van, Nick, Nick's girlfriend Paula and myself set out for the rocky reef about two miles west of the point. Once there Nick took over the helm and Van and I slipped into the water. On my first dive I was immediately schooled by about one hundred 2-5lb. Rainbow runners. I waited at about 25 feet and was just lining one up as a half dozen or so Jack Crevalle appeared just beyond the wall of Rainbows. Aiming between the fish in front of me I pulled the trigger and nailed a 12- pounder. The fish was easy to pull in and I waved the boat over to pick it up. Noting the commotion and type of fish I had caught Van yelled over that this was not the kind of fish we wanted and I should be shooting at the Rainbows.
The current was steady and by the time I got rigged up again I had drifted about 100 yards from the sweet spot over the reef. Looking back I saw the boat busy towing Van back into position so it was up to me to swim against the current until I saw the Rainbows again and once there took one on my second dive of the day. Again the boat came over to collect the fish however after passing it over the boat was quickly gone and I was again left to swim back into position. My blisters burned all the way. My third dive brought up another nice 5-6 pound Rainbow. perfect for grilling whole, and this time when the boat arrived to collect I hopped in and got a ride back into position.
I slipped into the water near Van and dove to 40 ft. expecting more of the pretty little rainbow runners and was shocked when a school of 50 or so barracuda cruised by to check me out. Uneasy I slowly rose to the surface and called over to Van to ask if he had seen them. He called back enthusiastically "Yeah! Shoot em! They're good eating!
Until now I had been hunting with only one band as the fish were small and close range. Anticipating the need for more power I loaded up the second band breathed up and went back down. The barracuda were still in position and I lined up a 20 pounder. The spear went in behind the gill plate just enough for the slip tip to string the fish who gave surprisingly little fight on the way back up. I called the boat over and let them take it in with the gaff. Both Nick and Paula were pretty freaked out so I hopped in and passing my knife to Paula, coached her to brain it before it got jumpy and somebody lost a finger. If Danny was going to sit at home I wanted to make sure she did something useful.
The boat had drifted a fair bit and I slipped back in the water, way out of position as once again Nick and Paula took off to tow Van. Cursing at my stupidity and their lack of attention I plodded back towards the goods. My blistered ankles ached, the neoprene booties no longer making any difference.
By the time I got back to the spot Nick and Van had switched places. Van was rigging the gun and handing it to Nick who would take a shot from the surface, miss, and hand it back for reloading. I watched them do this a couple of times and decided to keep my distance.
The barracuda were still very present and had seemed to scare off everything else. Remembering a BBQ invitation for that evening I decided to take one more and at 30 feet or so got a line on one that appeared to be the same size as the first. Calling the boat over I handed the gun with fish on to Nick who had given up and was now back in the boat. Climbing aboard the other side I discovered the second barracuda was about 10 lbs. bigger than the first. Everyone was clearly done and haven taken as much as the four of us could eat it was time to leave. Van seemed a little pissed not to have caught anything so I kept quiet except to thank him for the ride. I was peeved about being left alone so often but didn't want to loose my chance at another boat ride.
Back at Van's I cleaned all the fish and layed out some barracuda steaks in return for the ride. He graciously offered me a cooler to take the booty home in and then asked for two of the rainbows rather than the barracuda. I couldn't believe it.
Perry Gladstone
Posted by pike at February 22, 2002 10:56 AM