Last day on the water Healey and I bailed and stayed with rumors of the surf being up and a big night on the town. Alcohol and diving don’t mix so we let GR and Craig and DJ head back up to the good wall and the Moose knuckle.

First couple of dives in GR had a 100+lb Tuna in his sights but it wouldn’t come in close enough so he instead shafted a 30 lb one that was closer.

Only a half day and the seas were back up as well as the sharks.  Ended up with 2 tunas in the boat, 2 lost to sharks and a big Jobfish lost to the sharks as well.  The pics can’t do it justice when a swarm of ten haul ass after your fish as soon as you pull the trigger and it is over before you know it.   Welcome to Micronesia. It gets old fast believe me.

Meanwhile Mark and I had a session on one of the outer reefs which was a hell of a lot nicer in our minds than getting beat up near the Moose knuckle chasing Doggies.   Waves were fun but pretty mixed up and it turned another guy out there with us into a piece of human hamburger when we got sucked over the falls, slammed on his back, flipped him over and slammed again on his chest. He said when he hit his back he could hear it crunch and then when he hit his chest it felt like he had been hit by a car.  Not cool.   Ten minutes later and one of the boys had to run his boat in for him and I haven’t seen someone in that much pain in a while.   Some broken ribs is never cool and his back looks like he got attacked by a tiger.

Today was better. We made it back to the house last night before 2 in the morning, barely.

Surf was up and only three of us out trading head and half high waves until we could barely  paddle anymore.  Great session and a good way to end the trip.

Tonight we start dispersing. GR, Healey and I to Hawaii for a few days to shoot it up. Troy back to Guam, Craig to Louisiana, DJ to North Carolina.

All in all it was a great trip. Troy went above and beyond organizing everything and the boat we used was perfect.   Scott our boat driver did an amazing job and went over the top treating us right. Seriously the best treatment I’ve ever had on a dive charter anywhere in the world.

No one got hurt, but a lot of gear died.

Mark lost a 130 Riffe Euro, shaft and new reel to the biggest Doggie of the trip.  He had his laptop, cash, backpack and camera, and video camera taken from the truck the first night.  Bent three shafts on his 12o Euro shooting a Doggie and a big “Parrot”.  and a pair of flip flops. and bent his slip tip base giving a love tap to an over aggro toothy critter.

GR had a camera housing implode at depth and destroy a brand new Sony HC-9 video camera. two bents shafts and two lost ones (one sharks ate the Tuna and cut the shaft off, the other Tuna got lodged in the bottom in 160 ft of water and broke off).

Cameron bent one shaft, and Mark lost my snorkel so that counts against my total.  I would say I lost my dive knife but because I actually threw it at a 100+ lb Dogtooth to make him turn and come back while I was reloading my gun I am an idiot. When i did go and look for it I had a school of small doggies come in and circle my head and took my fat aggression out on their leader and never did find my knife.

Craig and Troy did better than anyone I think.  Craig didn’t bend but one shaft and might of lost a pair of booties that I stole but other than that it was ok.

The pics are off the chart. DJ Struntz has mad skills and Riffe, Salt Life, and Hawaii Skin Diver Magazine, and Quiksilver (Far Pacific)  gave us good support  for this trip to make it come together.

With all the guys we had together on this trip we had some serious planning sessions on gear, travel and techniques and no doubt the next one will be even better than this.  So much fun. Can’t wait to do it again.

Cameron Kirkconnell

Lots o dogs

Craig Big Doggie

Last two days has been a bit of a blur.

Lonefin’s last day was yesterday so it was his call to go to the deep reef and hope that the “hoovers” would let some of the fish come higher than 100 ft so he could get a few shots off.  The visibility wasn’t as good as it has been in the past with only 160-180 ft vis.  We had to stop ourselves from complaining and snap back in to reality.

First stop was one of the deep FAD’s (Fish Aggregate Devices) which is a buoy anchored in about 4000’ of water. For the most part they have been barren this time of year with only a few little Dolphinfish(Mahi mahi, Dorado, dodo’s) so we didn’t have very high hopes.  With four guys in the water the shafts started flying within only a few minutes and one poor lone little Weehoo was running scared from the cannons.  A lot of cursing and reloading later the guys gave up and we moved to the deep reef.

The next couple hours in slick calm conditions produced a number of small doggies, Craig with a Wahoo in the 25 lb range and some big barracudas. We explored some new areas and found the sharkiest areas as always held the best fish and both Heals and Craig landed big Barracudas that were attacked by huge swarms of sharks that we could see from the boat.

With my ear busted up I spent the majority of the day in the boat enjoying the slick calm conditions and the constant banter between the boat guys.  The highlight of the day was our boat guy Fonz pushing the knife out of the way as I was filleting a big ulua from the day before to use as chum in order to grab the eggs that were its belly.

“You are not going to eat that.”

and of course he proceeds to open it up and bite straight into it like it was a whopper with cheese.  Gnarliest thing i’ve seen in awhile.  Luckily I got it on video.

A bit later I had him show me the whole Beetle nut preparation which in itself is pretty heavy. Whoever figure that out in the first place had way too much time on their hands and was super desperate for a high.

The gist of it is:

You take a nut from the tree and crack it in half with your teeth and take out the middle part.  Once you have that out you get a bit of lime, which is actually crushed up limestone that is turned in to a paste and put in little film looking cannisters to sell, and you put a bit of that lime in the middle of the open nut.

Next you take a cigarette and break it in the middle and put the tobacco half in the middle of the nut too.

Lastly you take a piece of a pepper leaf and wrap the whole thing in that and you’re good to go.

If you ever go to anywhere in Micronesia or the south pacific and you see people (men and women) with nasty fungi looking teeth that look almost like they are made of wood, you can pretty much bank on them chewing beetle nut.

Nasty Nasty stuff.

Apparently it gets you a bit of a high but no one that i know says much about it being that hot.  The boat guys think that it makes them focus better so maybe Adrerol is on the outs and Bettle nut is moving in.

Everyone chews it. All the businesses around town have signs out front that say “No spitting of Beetlenut on premises!”

When you pull up to a stop light, usually at least the driver and the passenger doors open and they spit out their nut juice but if you get really lucky all four doors will open and the nastiness with come from each. Bad bad stuff.

So don’t pick up that habit when you come down here or your woman is going to never kiss you again.

So in between watching the guys dive crazy deep dives (a fair number of tunas were shot at 120 ft or better and the deepest of dives were… deeper than I will say because I don’t want the kids even thinking to go there on tanks) we had some shallow fun on the WWII ship and plane wrecks which were really badass.

One of the best shots of the trip was of Craig in full Kamikazee at the wheel of a flying boat that was crashed in about 40 feet. So funny we all almost drowned laughing watching it.

Today was a banner day for tunas.  in 5 hours of diving we shot 11 fish and should have had at least 3 wahoo that were too skinny for our shafts and we just could not seem to hit.   Probably the best day of Dogtooth tuna hunting I’ve ever seen and we were stoked to call it an early day and get in before the sun set for once.

Healey with another big DoggieProp of the flying boat

Omilu

Took the long ride again with flat seas finally (less than 4 ft that is) and went back to where we had seen the doggies the day before.

This is one of the spots we know we aren’t going to get very many fish but if and when we do they’ll be good ones.

We did two groups of three and drifted the edge of the drop in 40-150 ft of water and I stayed in the shallows to check on all the ulua holes.  DJ and I found some really incredible ones with no one home but with no lights I can only imagine deep in the back of some of the caves there had to be some lobsters or something. Really incredible holes I can’t wait to go back and check them again.

First drift up in only 30 feet of water right on the drop DJ and I were taking pics and up swims a Reef Shark and a medium size ulua.  As soon as he saw us he turned to bail down the reef and out of sight but luckily he turned when I made some noise and came right back in for an easy 6 ft shot.  Battle royale ensued and I muscled him out of the reef not giving him and inch of reel line and DJ got some incredible pics of the whole thing.

While we were messing around with him we also caught a good tako (octopus) and with the ulua and him together it looked insane. So cool.

Back in hunt mode and over “posing”, DJ spots a nice Dogtooth tuna up on the high part of the reef only 20 ft from the surface and Mark snakes it from me and blasts it right in front of the two of us.

So far one of the best fish of the trip. Pics to come.

Lots of cheeky little reef sharks today but the tiger left us alone and we saw a bunch of turtles and dolphins so lots of life on the reef which is always good to see.

End of the day we had three fish: Dogtooth Tuna, Jobfish and the ulua.  For 9 hours in the water it doesn’t seem like much but thats hunting for doggies. You have to put in the hard hours if you want to land the good ones no matter how frustrating it is.

Day 10:

Dove some WWII wreckage and played with some giant schools of Mu that were lucky we weren’t in hunting mode. They were the biggest ones we’ve seen with some in the 7 lb range.   Big night on the town had us out til 10 o’clock.  We’re getting soft having dove all day every day.  Up early in the morning tomorrow heading for the deep reef and checking the FAD’s we put out. Troy’s last day so hopefully we can score him some good fish.

CK

“I did not scream like a little girl.  You had better take that off of there.” Craig after finally reading the blog and seeing the part about the shark befriending his hand

“Yeah my legs really started to burn on my way back up when I got even with the reef at about 90 feet”

Day 8: Mark Healey coming up from the deepest dive any of us have ever done

“I was a candidate for the Air Force Academy.” DJ Struntz

Day 9:  Heals impressed by DJ being so locked on and military’ish asked him if he was ever in the military.

Into the Abyss

After being stuck on land for the weekend to supposedly “recover” and rest and instead feeling like we’ve been run over by the Mongolian hoard, we started diving again Monday.

With DJ here we wanted to get some choice shots so we started out running long and hit another deep reef way off the map that is far enough out we wouldn’t feel bad shooting the Reef Fish that the locals might otherwise pursue.

Starting strong we had Parrot Fish, Lots of small Mu (Bigeye Emperor) Long nose Emperor up to 12 lbs, Uku (jobfish), and all kinds of of other reefies.

Drifting a bit away from the group while he was dealing with an Uku Craig was suddenly hit on the hand and chest and looked down to see his hand in the mouth of a shark that had come from underneath him to eat his fish.  The frothing of water that ensued pushed the shark away for only a few seconds as he kept trying to come in and take the fish before succumbing to a few well placed fists amidst the whitewater.

All the while DJ and I are scanning the horizon trying to figure out who is yelling like a little girl and can’t find anyone with their gun up.  He lucked out and didn’t get cut up so we are lucky there but the shark huggers should now shut the hell up knowing that you can’t just get out of the water when something bad happens, or use a cage or not antagonize them.   Ten minutes later I shot a nice Mu and had it balled by 4 sharks that took it and then an hour later in the same spot GR shot a small DOgtooth Tuna and had no less than 20 sharks destroy it in less than 10 seconds.

Craig and I both had frustrating losses today on big fish that were equally mysterious. The first was his 80+lb Giant Trevally/Ulua that ripped the flopper off his shaft then went in a hole, reshot it with another gun through the head and somehow it came off and disappeared even in only 60 ft of water with 3 guys watching.  Suck ass.

I had a 100+ lb Dogtooth come in on me and DJ in only 50 ft of water when i was reloading and threw both my knife and flasher to get him to turn around to give me time to reload.  It worked but I lost my knife, made a 30 second dive and had him come back in only to turn 20 feet out and not present a shot…

30 minutes later I shot a small doggie and was using it to try and chum up the big one when a 80 lb fish came in and I dropped the tail of the one i had and the big one followed it down perfectly. I hit the surface, took a quick breath and dove right back down shooting the fish that was now mesmerized by the drifting tail, straight down through the back and out the other side.

By the time i got to the surface he had gotten over the drop and the buoys were heading under and DJ was slapping me on the back in congrats and then the bungey started bouncing and boom. he was gone.

All over in less than 2 minutes.  Suck ass.

Come to find out GR and Healey had just seen a 12 ft + Tiger shark and I can only hope to blame the loss on that or some other mass of sharks down deep as the flopper was toggled on the bottom of the fish and I don’t see any way it could of ripped out.

Long day but good to have had the two days rest before. We did a reflexology massage the night before and half of us that did it felt like we had been in a car accident it hurt so bad.  We need to man up and start landing some fish.

We found the spot.  We’ll make it happen today. I’m predicting a Dogtooth over 70 lbs in the next 10 hours.

CK

Murky conditions for Micronesia

TToday was the last of our off days and we took DJ to try out his new underwater housings and did some warm up diving on the drop offs and checked some crazy Ulua holes that were off the chart cool. One of the caves was so massive you could have put a 10,000 square foot house in it and still had room for a 5 car garage.

Epic epic spot. The photos that I took with my camera don’t do it justice but DJ’s are all time and will likely be the shots of the year for many different magazines and our book.

On Friday we hit a few new spots and shot a pair of Doggies and some more Uku and Red Bass and of course when I have the camera, and it won’t turn on, and I’m down 60 ft and two big doggies swim right up to me, I don’t have a friggen gun.  I’m so glad DJ is here so I can start shooting some stuff and not be chasing everyone around with the video camera.

I’ll expand on this one but these are some prelims to our world.  Such a cool place. On our days off when we can find something like this to play with and relax you have to appreciate how incredible this sport can be.

CK

And I’m over trying to flip this pic below I can’t get it to insert rotated for some reason i apologize for making everyone turn their computers.

But it is worth it. One of my favorite pics I’ve ever seen. GR took this one of me and Healey on the surface behind.

End of the fourth day and we are getting a bit ragged. Today was 8 ft seas all day and we ran 30 miles to a new reef to give it a go.
Rough as hell. Kudos to our boat driver Scott for keeping track of everyone and riding it out all day it was not fun in the boat.
In the water it was interesting as always with plenty of cheeky little sharks thinking we were part of the menu..
Craig landed a nice GT and we shot some giant Parrot fish, Red Bass, Longnose Emperor, Opelu kala and other assorted reef fish.
High light of the day was the deckhands’ 4 teeth that looked like they had chewed a beetle nut tree down to get at all the ones he possibly could before he lost the remaining little brown and black ones.
I think we all flossed and brushed three times today.
NO TIGER SHARKS today. Saw my first humpback whale with a calf at the end of the day which even though I knew exactly what i was jumping in the water to see i was not prepared for. Those things are massive!!! It was a fleeting sight but really incredible nonetheless.
GR Still remains my hero after tossing his cookies for twenty minutes and then getting in the water and diving for another 4 hours and getting pissed at us when WE wanted to leave. I think he is disappointed in us young’uns.
The Reef we worked today was a nice reprieve from the areas that have been whipped up on by the local night time scuba spearfisherman. It isn’t a good thing to come to such a gorgeous group of islands and find that guys are cleaning out all the parrots in the middle of the night when they are sleeping.
When we hit the outer reefs it is a relief to see so much life.
Had a few “almost” chances at some Dogtooth Tuna in the 50-70 lb class today but we couldn’t capitalize. Those fish never cease to amaze me coming in to 40 ft deep water up on top of the reef when we are shooting Uku and Mu.
More to come. We are still going strong tomorrow hoping for calmer weather and maybe the good doggie spots to avenge some lost gear.
Stay tuned

Craig with a good Ulua

Riffe Cryptic Green Camo doing its thing on the deep reefs

Cajun GT. He was coming right for us

Another First Red Snapper Ciguatera special

Long day today. Can feel ourselves wearing down from the long days and jet lag and not giving ourselves a break.

Of course that doesn’t mean much until we’re off the water.   Three watches today read over 100 ft and counting…

More doggies today and some Uku and Red Bass to spice it up. Stopped on some FAD (Fish aggregate devices) which were  in a few thousand feet of water that had no good fish but plenty of bait and some of the best vis I’ve ever seen.

Craig antagonized the sharks as usual and they wouldn’t leave him or any of the rest of us alone so thats what some of these pics are from the sharks being around.

Its been really spooky diving out in the blue with the Humpback Whales deep music playing constantly and I’m sure its only a matter of time before they show up and give us a good show.

Covered some serious ground today and saw a few doggies in the 75 lb class to keep it interesting but no takes on the straight hooks.

More to come.

GR"s first jobbie/Uku

Lone Fin on the FAD

Started the day early and were on the spot by the time the sun came up.

I was first in the water and lo an behold the promiseland and you can see the bottom in 160 ft of water. Unbelivable.

We mucked around for a bit and within an hour found the high spot and Healey and I got in with only the camera.  At 90 feet we had 6 dogtooth circling us and Heals got some good video of them as a big Napolean Wrasse came in as well.  Incredible spot.

Of course the boys in the boat were frothing when we told them and we started a drift and immediately GR smashes a small one about 30 lbs that immediately heads for the bottom and rocks up.

Had to learn the hard way didn’t you.  Damn Dogtooth tuna are the toughest fighting fish and one of the hardest to land.  Even a small fish will head for the bottom and this one went to 120 ft and then into a hole.  They are such a pain to land.

So we snapped that whole shaft off on the high spot and GR went to get another one..

Worked the hightspot and did some good drifts and started getting some Uku and Red Bass and bouncing some sharks off the end of the camera and guns. Cheeky little 4-6 footers have never seen anything to be afraid of and had no qualms about coming in on us time after time.

All Right so the idiocy,

I’m having Healey write it since he started it and finished it and screwed us all into the deal.  Ok turns out he isn’t computer friendly and doesn’t read much unless there is lots of pictures so no he’s screwed.

So this one high spot had lots of fish we could use of burley so Mark makes the call to use only his 120 Riffe with a reel…. (sounds familiar doesn’t it) to shoot some before we start our big drift.

Mark’s down on the front part of the pinnacle and about a minute in at 70 ft a little puppy (small Dogtooth Tuna) comes in and once again you can see the wheels turn and inevitably he says “F It, small enough i can horse him in before he gets to the deep water..” and pulls the trigger.

By this time he’s at about 90 ft and we’re watching and the doggie goes batty and…. the line wraps around the bands of the gun and proceeds to drag him down as he fumbles with it to get it untangled so as not to lose two guns in two days..

One pull, two pulls, third time it comes loose and line starts playing off the reel and I’m already on my way down to meet him at about 40 feet.   Unclipping my gun I grab his from him and clip it off and as he heads for the surface and at the same time Craig is there and grabs one of the guns and we turn and go to the surface with the doggie slowed down enough to deal with him and I  look and my gun is heading for the bottom, fast, free of any float line and out of sight before we reach the surface.

WTF!!!!!!!!

We were all so caught up in making sure we didn’t lose Healeys gun and everyone thoughy everyone else had the others gun and… damn we’re idiots.

He lands the fish which is a whopping 12 lbs and we start looking for my gun.

GR goes down to grab my gun on the bottom at 101 ft and as his mask is filling with water he kicks for the surface only to have the line get wrapped in the bottom and have to let the whole thing go.

On the surface Mark hands GR his gun and the Fish and heads for the bottom to grab my gun.

HEading for the surface he happens to look over and there is his gun, on the bottom, not attached to anything, on the top of the pinnacle.  WTF!!!!!!!

Apparently GR only grabbed the fish when Heals thought he had the gun too and the rig went straight to the bottom.

Luckily that one only went to about 95 ft and Craig had it on the next dive.

We’re idiots. Lucky for me I dive with Freaks of nature and we can recover stuff that we drop when we’re stupid and we back each other up so we can dive deep safely when my make moronic mistakes like shooting dogtooth tuna with a reel.

End of day, 6 Dogtooth landed, a nice Uku (Jobfish) and plenty of other fodder for the chum slick.  We are starting to figure out the spot and in the coming days I’m sure we’ll have some incredible pictures and fish if we can manage to not loose any more gear.

Also saw some Mahi Mahi and small Wahoo and huge napolean wrasse so its been interesting….

Hello Little Doggies!!!

Luckily for me GR, Craig, Troy and MArk all got here a day before i did and worked out some of the kinks. We had to deal with finding enough place for everyone to sleep and now it looks like a halfway house with everyone on the floor of the place and about 20 guns strewn about every available inch of space left.

Mark started strong by getting his backpack ripped off losing his laptop, underwater camera and all his money. I followed by having the airlines painfully take my bags off right in front of me minutes before we left the ground in Guam.
So that sucks….

Day one
We’re met with 20 knot winds and can’t reach the honey hole that I really wanted to hunt while we were here…
WE hammer it out into the wind to make due at our “back up spot” which is closer to the island and one of the sharkiest places I’ve had to dive in the past.

I leave all my guns in the room to concentrate on filming and its a good thing since we all feel like ass after having travelled for three days straight and feeling the effects.
First spot, hop in and I follow Healey who quickly sorts out the bottom contours and positions above the best looking spot.
WE should use float lines and bungeys
About an hour in we are both feeling like crap and after seeing some small dogtooth tuna at around 100 ft we’re drifting and in comes a monster.
When the big ones come in you can tell because they look like a dinosaur with all kinds of scars on the face and a body like a 55 gallon drum.
I could see about .0005 seconds of hesitation and cursing going on in Marks head as he realized the 130 Riffe Euro with a reel in his hands was a lot less than he needed.
Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!
OF course he took the shot and I hauled ass to the surface as soon as I saw him lining up on it.
The 150 lb Dogtooth turned about 15 feet out and he drilled him just behind the pectoral fin and Heals started pumping for the surface..
A big head shake and the fish swims about 20 feet and I think that we might have a chance at landing him with just a reel and 200 ft of line but…
No way.
The fish hauls ass north towards Japan and mark towards the surface and with 50 feet to go the line comes tight and the Gun is wrenched from Marks hands.
At least I got it all on video.
Painful as hell to lose not only the fish but also to keep wracking up the list of stuff he’s donated to the islands already!

Another drift and we see some more dogs and I “borrow” GR’s gun to to try a dive. As luck would have it a pair of small doggies come in and a 35 lb one takes one through the side and I haul him in from the surface while GR and Troy push the sharks off.
A bit later we see one in the 200 lb Range and some big Giant Trevally and Healey pulls off another shot on a 70 lb one that takes him in the rocks at 100ft and luckily pulls off so we don’t have a repeat.

The sounds from the whales and the sharks on the surface and all around us every time we pulled the trigger kept it interesting but today is when we are going to start really diving. We are a bit more rested. Everyone is amped and I can only imagine what we see out there today is going to be some of the best diving in the world.
Cameron Kirkconnell