Well had a great day on the water yesterday but left the camera behind. Eddie and Stoner have photos so I will get some photos before I post this.
We headed out early yesterday in search for wahoo and we found them. When we first got out there, the overcast skies and rain made for pretty poor vis even though the actual visibility was probably close to 90 feet. We did the first drift and all that I had was a shark come in on my flashers but Andy said he saw one. The next drift I was just floating along starting to get kind of bored, when suddenly a 40# wahoo came straight up out of the darkness at my flashers, I slowly dropped down and shot him in the last 1/3 of his body and he was off like a rocket. This time he did not swim down he swam like a bullet just under the surface. After a second stoner picked me up in the boat and dropped me just a head of my float with my second gun. I slowly pulled him up put a second shot in his head and that fish was on the boat.
The next drift if was Andy’s turn, I was still in the boat putting my gun back together when I saw Andy’s float go down , just for second. At first I though it had pulled off, but then Andy hit the surface and said fish on. Then the float took off like a rocket, everyone jumped on the boat and we chased the fish down, I jumped in and as Andy pulled the float up I swam down and put a second shot in the fish.
Did I mention there were sharks all over? Grey reef sharks, bull sharks and hammer head would appear here and there all over. Going up to the flashers, eating bits of chum doing little drive bys to see what were doing. At one point Stoner was charging a hammerhead and a wahoo swam in behind him following him, I yelled but when he turned around it was gone.
Anyways on the next drift I was drifting along with stoner, when a big wahoo appeared he was moving kind of quick put I dropped on it anyway. I was following it for a minute when I heard a gun go off. I was probably 30 feet down in like 90-100 feet of water. The suddenly a float went flying by past me under water dragging flashers with it. The float was compressed and was like 80 feet down. Two reef sharks were in hot pursuit of the float actually looked like they were attacking the flashers. I hit the surface and called for the boat. Eddie had shot a big wahoo 60# and the float was just gone. After like 5 minutes the float popped up. We all got in the boat chased the fish down and I jumped in with Eddie, a wall of yellow jacks came up to greet us, like literally 200 fish in an almost solid mass. I passed on shooting and went right to the wahoo. Eddie started pulling him up slow, I was going to hand my gun to him to put the second shot in it, but then we saw the slip tip almost out of it, so I jetted down and put a second shot in it. As soon as I hit it with the second shot the first shot pulled out and I pulled him to the surface.
Once I hit the surface I started swimming towards the boat. I heard Eddie yell, I turned and there was a big sand bar right up behind me. I pulled the fish to the boat handed the line to Andy and jumped out. But then Eddie wanted gopro footage, so I got back in but then the sand bar and the two reefs came back up. After a minute I was out of there and the fish was in boat. The big camera case is nice it has mass , something to push with, the little gopro in the palm of your hand is just less reassuring around sharks.
The next drift I was first in the water everyone else was held up with gear and the last fish. Andy threw the guts in from the 60#er and almost immediately another wahoo saw up and started trying to eat them. I dove on it, lined up and at the last second it ran to check out another piece of guts and I missed the shot. I started reloading the gun and it swam to check out my flashers then it swam to the guts again. After what seemed like an eternity I got the gun loaded and dove on it, it started swimming down and I followed down to around 50 or 60 feet and shot it in the tail.
I jumped in the boat and chased it down, got my float line and started pulling it up a shark had it its mouth and was pulling on it. played tug or war for a minute and it started to come up, I got it up to the shooting line and then the shark grabbed its head , Eddie jumped in and stuck the go pro in its face and made it back down. I had the float line wrapped all around me, handed the float line to Andy in the boat to pull it up, Stoner jumped in and hit the shark in the head and it went back down out of sight.
Then it turned off, nothing no more wahoo, no sharks, nothing, no fish. We drifted it for a bit more and nothing. Then Stoner and I put on scuba tanks and went down on a hump in between the reef and bar and we both shot a pair of matching 45# Amberjacks. At this point the wind had picked up from the west, the vis had gone to crap and we called it a day.