Winds: 10-15 SE
Seas: 2-4 feet (sloppy)
Surf Temp: +/- 80F
Viz: 25-60 feet
Saturday was pretty much a wash for me due to the fact that I had to pull an all nighter on Friday and didn't get to show up on Saturday until about 3:30 in the afternoon. But after downing 6 or 7 beers and laying down early to get a full night's rest that night, I hoped Sunday was the beginning of a better weekend. Unfortunately, I was wrong, my brother-in-law was sick with a flu so it made it a little hard to get him going, and there really weren't any nice fish at the spot we hit that day.

Monday thankfully enough was a different story. I decided to stay an extra day to make up for having to give up Saturday, but for once it worked out in my favor in spades. We headed out in the morning to see if we could pick up a few decent mangroves because the pickings had been slim over the past week or two (at least according to our friends who had gone out last week). We headed for a spot that a couple of weeks ago had held a few larger fish along with a large number of smaller ones. As long as you were patient and didn't get too trigger happy, you could whack a few nice ones. We get to the spot and there is a little current but nothing you couldn't work against (emphasizing the "work" part). All in all we didn't limit out, but we did end up with 16 really nice mangoes (along with a couple of training fish since we had a couple of the kids with us).

From there we moved on to another patch reef that we have grown fond of lately. A nice wide patch reef with good relief (in the 1-2 foot range. The last time we got some decent fish here, I bent one of my Euro shafts on a decent black grouper in a tight hole (amazing how they can always find a way to bend a shaft in a hole they have no right fitting into). As soon as I get in the water, I turn to my left to look at a ledge and out in the open is what looks like a 15lb black (actually, she was 17 lbs, but who's counting :). I descend on her and she holes right up. We're in about 30-35 feet of water, so I get belly down on the sand and can see her tail and make out a good portion of her body. So rather than giving her an opportunity to run, I angle the gun up and take the shot. She immediately starts thrashing and works herself through a hole in the top of the ledge (bending my shaft of course) and laying on top of the ledge. I couldn't tell if my shaft had penetrated completely so I asked for a second shot. The only person in earshot who responded was one of my nephews, who hands me a half loaded gun with the safety on (which of course I didn't realize until I was hovering over the grouper pulling on the trigger incessantly). Luckily, by now I realized the shot was a good one and she wasn't going anywhere. Enter the pain in the a#$ nurse sharks. After fending off 2 small nurse sharks I was finally able to work her free.

It was getting close to high tide so we decided to head back because we wanted to hit a system of ledges that are in a particularly nasty area when it's pretty much any time but slack, but we were looking to find the grouper that we had seen that last time we were there (check out Sunday in this blog). We get there to see 2 grouper (one of which was 15 lbs) hole up in the same spot I couldn't get a shot into the last time. This time, I wasn't going to give up so easily because this time the slack tide was on my side. After investigating the situation thoroughly I found a way that I could work my gun into a crack between 2 very large brain corals in order to get a shot into a small crevice where I cold see her hiding. I do down, I work the angle and take the shot. The sound that ensues resembles thunder underwater and the dust cloud almost covered both of the corals. Luckily the dust settled quickly and I went to retrieve my prize only to have my shaft come free when I start pulling the grouper out of the hole. Upset but not hopeless, I go back down to investigate when from my inverted position I can see the grouper (the big one!) lying inverted in the hole, unfortunately she was behind a sea urchin that had spines at least 10 inches long. I surface to re-think my retrieval when she makes a death rattle and emerges from the hole to start floating around the top of the coral. So I retrieve my prize, but wait there's more!

We decide to keep going since the tide has only just switched, but before we can make it 20 feet, a 6-7 foot bull shark comes in to investigate all the commotion. After the last few weeks' numerous encounters with bull sharks we finally made good on our threats to get ammo for the power head, so I call to the boat for the power head to be safe. The shark comes around again so I descend on it. Luckily it moves away and out of sight, but we remain aware just in case. We drift about another 30-40 feet before we realize the smaller bull shark has apparently gone and told his big brother on us. We turn around to see a solid 8-9 foot bull shark swimming in the middle of the water column with a remora big enough to shoot hanging around it. I keep the power head pointed at it, but it disappears pretty quickly and we decide that today will not be the day we use the power head for the first time and that the best defense is knowing when the hell to run away...