Hunting alone
03 May 2010 | Salomon Bay, St. Johns
Steve
Hunting Alone
We were anchored in a bay bordered by a steep hill with large rocks at the waters edge.I put on my snorkeling gear and armed with my spear I swam the 50 yards to the the shore line. There were the normal starfish and rays along the way, rays must stir up food as they drift along the bottom because you often see them with schools of fish swarming above them, they look like they are fighting but maybe the fish are just getting to close. The ocean is amazing, every were you look there is life, if you don't see anything you can just drift there for a minute and something will show up or more often you will see something you missed.
I arrived at the shore that dropped off at a steep angle and there were 10 ft under water cliffs covered with coral running off the shore with rock rubble between them . There were thousands of colorful reef fish and I spotted two snappers with their spot on their side but they were to small to shoot. The normal 3.5 ft barracuda was watching me for a while but drifted away out of sight ,they are always there some where.
Under a rock I saw a lobster but it's tentacles were to small so I poked him in the nose with the spear to assure myself I could have gotten him if I had wanted to and he scurried back into his hole. Further along I see some larger tentacles and a big head so I shot into the hole hitting the lobster in the back of the head . I pulled him out of the hole and as is often the as is the case the head is bigger than the tail but I have already shot him now so I take him off the spear and carry him in my left hand and continue on. Two lobster means there must be more, maybe a big one. As I come over a cliff there is a Grouper. It starts to move away and I release the spear , it's a direct hit right through the throat.
Oh no! Having a lobster in your hand is one thing but a bleeding fish thrashing on the end of the spear is another. As soon as you spear a fish the practice is to hold the fish out of the water at the end of the spear and get him into the dingy as fast as possible. I'm out without a dingy. I hold the fish out of the water, my brilliant neck shot has gone through mostly gills and the fish slips down the spear to my hand . I look up and the boat is about !/8th of a mile away. I start swimming fish in one hand lobster in the other. I keep close to shore with eye to the deep water, any sight of the barracuda or his bigger brother and I drop the spear and the fish and swim for the shallows. What if the dyeing fish who is still thrashing around on my spear attracts a shark. I swim faster. It never occurs to me that I could abandon the fish. I make the mad dash across open water for the boat still noticing the rays and their entourage of fish . Every once in a while I spin in the water to make sure nothing is following me . You really notice the tunnel vision through a mask in a situation like this. I make the dingy tied to the back of the boat and throw the fish and lobster over the transom. "dinner".