We went out for a half day yesterday the vis wasn’t too hot 20-30 feet. We drifted over a wreck in around 80 feet of water and if you dove down it was just like diving into an abyss. We saw a bunch of jacks, and some small king mackerel. I shot an AJ but it tore off.
After that we went to the bar and the vis was worse, so we came in and checked the reef. Still crap, so we decided to drift some patch reefs in 20 feet of water. Its was fun but the fish where small. We picked up red groupers, hogfish and a mutton.
We were drifting in 20 feet of water and a school of big yellow jacks with a nurse in tow swam right in front of me and I missed the biggest one. I just tried a lighter shaft on my gun because I felt kind of ridiculous shooting hogs and red grouper with a 7.5 mm shaft and a double wrap of mono. I think I should stick with the heavy shaft, I’m used to it and I wouldn’t have missed that shot.
Anyways a couple minutes after I reload, this enormous hammerhead comes swimming in and swims right at me. Shark was at least 10-12 feet long, and its head looked like it was over 2 feet across. I pointed my gun at it and kept thinking it’s going turn, it’s going turn, and at that last second it turned. I yelled to Albie and when I saw it circling back I called for the boat. Catherine and Gabbi, they found my tone of yell very amusing.
I got out but Albie wanted to film the shark, so we give the camera to him and I got back in. The shark kept circling us and swimming directly underneath us. I’m not sure what it was looking for, we hadn’t shot a fish in while at that point.
I should have swam down next to shark to show the scale better, but after its initial close pass I was too spooked. Albie shot a mutton that tore off and that might have been what drew the hammer in, I also took a shot at a mutton but missed. Damn that light shaft. Then Albie shot the cubera and we headed in. Pretty fun day for being so close to Key West and in shallow water.
