Micronesia: Day 8: Revival

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