I think I am going to get motivated and bring out the UW camera next trip. Had a pretty great trip the yesterday, I am going to try to write this post today instead of waiting because the longer I wait the worse the writing is, in my opinion.
Headed out yesterday in the freezing weather for the Keys. I think the air temp was in the high 60s and the ocean water was around 70 degrees. We first headed out to possible look for wahoo but the seas where choppy , the water clear but not crystal clear. We just decided we would go a bit west and look for some new spots.
The day started slow for me but Garrett and Stoner started putting some fish in the boat right away. I swam around forever looking for fish and not seeing anything but groupers and .5# mangroves. I found one coral head that the grouper were so packed in the would not all fit. They kept pushing each other out. There was a nice 10# red and a 4# red and two legal sized black and one black that had to be over 20#. I marked the rock with the gps but it will probably be empty when the season starts.
We then hit these two rocks next to each other that both have caves inside them. There wasn’t much going on around the rocks, no yellow jacks or amberjacks. I saw a 3 or 4# yellowtail up sneak into one of the caves so I loaded one band slid down to see if I could get him. I stuck my head in the cave and this huge snapper was looking back at me I tried to shoot him between the eyes. I guess the shaft just slipped off his forehead head and went in just above his gill. The fish took off to the other side of the cave tearing off. I got to the surface and called garrett to come watch the entrances to the the cave, there was like three ways into the cave.
Blood was just pouring out of the cave, making a huge cloud. I went down and looked in the cave and the fish was laying in there, so I loaded both bands and tried to stone the fish this time. I hit it a bit low and the fish took off again ripping off and bending my shaft. At this point everything was so stirred up you could not see anything. We had to wait, Andy joined us and we all took turns diving and looking in the cave. We couldn’t find it we looked and looked and could not find the fish. Andy was even crawling way up in the cave out of sight and still did not find him.
The I saw this moray moving to the original cave to another rock a little bit away. I followed him and went down and checked a second cave and the fish was in it. He was beat , he looked dead. So I shot him again and he came alive and bent another shaft but I got him out. He weighted 45# almost a twin the the first big cubera I got years ago.
The rest of the day was ok but no epic. We did find several new spots loaded with grouper. Garrett and Andy got several nice muttons. I got a decent dog snapper and a couple yellow jacks. By the end of the day we were all freezing.
