All right back from fishing and again going to try to get a report written while everything is fresh in my mind. Went out fishing the past couple days with Andy, Niko and Ryan from Zimbabwe. I am going to down a couple cups of coffee and get this written. Still slacking on the underwater photos, hard to stop diving and get photos of fish, more so as time goes on. We spent the last three days far out west searching for new spots, and although we did find some new stuff a lot of the time was just spent looking.
First day we went way west and dove pretty all day without finding anything that great. We picked away at some hogs and reds and other odds and ends but we didn’t really find anything until right before sunset. We found some Swiss cheesy bottom with a bunch of live coral and it was teeming with fish. A huge school of mangroves were on it along with several blacks, yellow jacks and tons of triggerfish and tropicals. Ryan and Andy both got blacks but overall the day was not that great.
The next day also was slow, although we did find one decent ledge in the morning. Most of the rest of the day was slow, not really finding a lot. Then towards the end of the day we tried free diving some stuff in 80-90 feet- this was kind fun but not really productive. Everyone breathing up forever and spotting each other etc. Ryan shot a nice cubera at close to 100 feet but everything else we got was pretty meager. We actually did find some more big rocks in 60-70 which hopefully we will hit next trip.
Then came the tank diving which I always suck at. Niko and I dropped on tank in 100 feet or so, I hit bottom and immediately Niko is gone. So I swim around for a awhile and then I see a big african pompano so I shoot it and it pulls off. Then I swam around for awhile not really seeing anything worth shooting. I come up and Niko has a Pompano and Nice black. So then Ryan and Andy go down and Ryan gets a 45# black first dive and Andy gets nothing. Then it was Niko’s and my turn again. Niko right before the dive tells me how every dive he gets a black in this spot, so I stick with him and guess how many blacks we see. None, I shot one yellow jack . Then it was Andy and Ryan again. Andy got a nice Black and Ryan didn’t get anything. After that we quit because you aren’t supposed to freedive after tanking.
The next day we finally got into some fishing. The first spot we dive was kind of cool bottom but kind of slow, a couple fish here and there but nothing major. The next spot we hit was going off. Ryan and I jumped in and were immediately greeted with a swarm of amberjacks, he shot one and was fighting it while I looked out for sharks. When he got it under control, I dove down and saw we were on some sort of huge rock, like with 15-20 feet or more of relief and it was about 70 feet to the sand. There was fish everywhere. I shot the first grouper within range and headed to the surface. Andy and Ryan started diving the rock and everyone was shooting groupers, then Andy shot a nice kingfish, then a school of yellow jacks swam in and we all shot one of them. Sharks were zipping around here and there. It was great. The next couple spots were pretty good as well, huge ledges and rocks. Everyone was shooting nice fish, muttons were everywhere. Then it kind of died down. We kept finding nice rocks but they did not have much fish on them. Then we found another big rock and were marking yellowtails all over it. Ryan went down and shot a nice black, and then Andy had a mutton eaten by a jewfish. I shot a yellow jack which housed me and got into the rock. The drag on my ulusub reel stopped working and it goes into a free spool now which sucks. Once the jack incident was resolved, I pulled I think the biggest hog of the trip off the rock along with a 10# scamp which is a first for me.
Then Ryan and I dove some other less extreme bottom and it was loaded with fish. Ryan shot a black but it rocked up. I went down to pull it out and got it half way out, in the process a nice red was looking at me so I shot him. Then Ryan went down and tried to get it out. When he came up he said there was a world record red looking him at so we gave him another gun and sent him down to shoot it. It of course wasn’t there anymore. Then Andy said he just had a nice mutton eaten by a shark. So I dove and shot another nice mutton and as I was pulling it up a shark came with it. Andy went and blocked that shark but then 4 of his friends came up and ignored Andy and took the mutton. We gave up that spot but will hit it again when then vis is bit better.
After that nothing really noteworthy happened that I can remember.