Mashes Sands 7/22

Wil · Post by **Wil** » July 22nd, 2004, 7:48 pm

Joe K. and I headed out of Mashes Sands this morning. It was a bit rougher than the predicted "1 foot or less" this morning, but it slacked off to glass by midday.

Our original plan was to dive one spot on the way out, then dive K Tower to try to kill some of the cobia that have been reported out there. Well, as the grunts say, no plan survives first contact intact. Our first dive was on a spot in 60 fsw that neither of us had dove before. Vis was about 20 feet on the bottom, water temp was "warm" (forgot to look at my thermometer).

We didn't kill much, but we loved the scenery so much we decided to forego K Tower and dive it again. Of course, it could have had something to do with the 70-80 lb gag I saw, and the 30-40 lb gag Joe saw.

When I first saw him, I thought he was a jewfish, since we saw a big one when we first dropped. Needless to say, I wasn't aiming for him when he turned his square tail and swam off. OMG! I burned over 1000 psi trying to follow him, but he didn't get that big by being stupid. I saw a few more nice (24-26") gags on the way back to the boat, but I was already shaken. I have a quest now.

Joe and I had split up once we hit the bottom, but when we got back to the boat we exchanged fish stories. We agreed that we wanted to stay at the same spot, in hope of finding those guys again.

We pulled the boat up closer to where we saw the grouper before our second dive. As soon as we hit the bottom we split up, me heading upcurrent towards where mine had headed off to. On the way, I spotted a keeper gag showing me his profile about 20 feet away. Since I've been practicing freeshafting, I decided to take a shot. I hit about 3" too far back behind his head, no kill shot. It was fun to chase him though, we played hide-and-seek through some rocks and ledges before I finally cornered him.

Not 2 minutes after I'd reloaded, a nice 30"+ gag presented himself almost as nicely, but an even longer shot. I managed to get the spear into him, but he got up under a big ledge (big depth-wise, only about 16-18" tall), and shook the shaft out. I hadn't had time to reload with my spare shaft, so there wasn't anything I could do as he came barreling by me. It took forever to recover my shaft, but I managed to get it out from under the ledge.

I hunted the big guy a bit longer, but didn't see him. I finally gave up and headed back to the boat. By this time the current had finished changing directions and I had a long swim ahead of me. I ended up having to finish it with a surface swim.

Joe saved enough air to be able to go back down and free the anchor before we left, and his big gag showed back up again, while he was down there without his gun.

I'm not posting any details about this spot, because Joe and I have a quest now. Grouper don't tend to move around that much, so we're going back. Any details I may have posted about the location itself may or may not be true.

At the end of the day, our only complaint was that we wished we'd taken more tanks. We didn't kill many fish (a couple of gags, hogs, and sheepshead), but we had more fun than I've had on just about any dive. That huge gag will be haunting my dreams for a while. If he's still there next time, I'll have 60" of spring steel with his name written all over it.

Post by **Chalk** » July 22nd, 2004, 8:10 pm

You Suck........

I think your baiting me and it's not gonna work

Sounds like a nice dive, I guess the big ones get away no matter what your doing.....

Wil · Post by **Wil** » July 23rd, 2004, 9:33 am

Chalk wrote: I think your baiting me and it's not gonna work

Nah, if I was baiting you I'd tell you about all the sheepshead and hog snapper I didn't shoot because I wanted to find that big guy again.

One of these days I'll take a camera down with me, and post some of the pics on here.

Vitz · Post by **Vitz** » July 23rd, 2004, 10:15 am

Sounds like you have a good spot there. If it's in 60 fsw and has that kind of fish on it in the middle of the summer, there can't be too many folks that know about it. Let us know what happens when you return to it!

Post by **Sir reel** » July 23rd, 2004, 11:20 am

Wil Wrote:

One of these days I'll take a camera down with me, and post some of the pics on here.

Good report Wil.

I'll be glad to loan you my camera if you need one... it's one of those that records the date/gps at the bottom of the picture...

Post by **Aucilla** » July 23rd, 2004, 1:12 pm

Nice report Wil! Thanks for the great story. I look forward to the sequal!

Post by **Frank Bradfield** » July 23rd, 2004, 3:56 pm

Wil, you said the water was warm , what mm suit did you wear ? skin or 3mm ? Sounds fun ! I'm in the middle of my dive classes now, hope to get out there with you before to long ! Frank

Post by **Frank Bradfield** » July 23rd, 2004, 8:32 pm

Wil, I have a couple of more questions for you if you don't mind, # 1, what kind of spear gun do you recommend and please don't recommend one that shoots curve balls

, and for # 2, do you dive with nitrogen or nitrox and which one do you like better ? Thanks much ! Frank

Wil · Post by **Wil** » July 24th, 2004, 5:20 pm

Frank Bradfield wrote:Wil, you said the water was warm , what mm suit did you wear ? skin or 3mm ? Sounds fun ! I'm in the middle of my dive classes now, hope to get out there with you before to long ! Frank

Just a t-shirt and shorts right now. I need to get around to buying a rash-guard though, since the stinging critters are thick out there right now. I plan on diving through the winter, though, so I will probably buy a 2mm for fall, and then a 5mm to wear over it during winter. The "farmer john" style has been highly recommended to me by several people, since it is more versatile.

Wil · Post by **Wil** » July 24th, 2004, 5:49 pm

Frank Bradfield wrote:Wil, I have a couple of more questions for you if you don't mind, # 1, what kind of spear gun do you recommend and please don't recommend one that shoots curve balls , and for # 2, do you dive with nitrogen or nitrox and which one do you like better ? Thanks much ! Frank

1) For an all-around great gun, Spearfishing Specialties Sea Hornet. You can get them over at Coral Reef for about $20-30 more than you'd find it online. They make all sorts of sizes and varieties of them. I have the 48" mahogany gun, paid about $220 at Coral Reef. Now that I've been shooting it for a while, I'm wishing I'd bought one with the commercial muzzle and the commercial line on it, though. That would have added about $200 on to the price, but since I'm mostly freeshafting now, the added accuracy and reload speed would have been worth it. If you don't want to drop $400-600 on a gun, though, the regular one will do you just fine. They have a rhino-lined one also, which is the exact same gun except that, you guessed it, it's rhino-lined. If you're rough on gear like I am, then that'd be a good investment. It's only about $30 more than the mahogany gun, if I recall correctly. Again, I kinda wish I'd bought that upgrade as well.

If you're a bigger guy, you might want to look at the 52" gun, since it will get you a bit more range and stopping power. One thing to take into account, though, is that visability isn't always that great in our area, and a long gun can be a disadvantage in low vis conditions. Now that I'm freeshafting, I'm happy with my 48" gun. If I was mostly line-shafting, then I'd definately want to step up to something a bit bigger. (The line really decreases your range and accuracy.)

Also, I'd recommend stepping up to a longer shaft than the gun comes with. The 48" gun shoots a 54" shaft by default, but by using a 60" shaft you'll get more range, accuracy, and penetration. A friend of mine even shoots a 66" freeshaft with his 48" Sea Hornet.

2) I dive both air and nitrox, depending on the depth/duration of the dive. For dives under 60 fsw, I just dive air. When I get my steel 120s back from the dive shop, I might drop that limit down to 50 fsw, since I'll be getting extended bottom time. For repetitive dives over 60 fsw, I use nitrox. Nitrox always wins, hands down, but the price (fills are more expensive) isn't justified for shallow dives. For deeper dives, the difference can be amazing.

For example, according to the YMCA tables, you maximum no-deco time on air at 70 fsw is 40 minutes. If you don't have nitrox tables or a nitrox computer, you can plan your dive using an "equivalent air depth" formula. If I were to dive 38% EAN to 70 fsw, my equivalent air depth would be approximately 48 fsw, meaning I could plan the dive as a 50 fsw dive. At 50 fsw the no-stop time is 80 minutes. That's double the bottom time!

Another huge bonus is that the extra oxygen leaves you feeling less fatigued at the end of the dive. It also reduced narcosis at depth, or so I'm told. I'll be finding out this week, since I'll be doing a dive to 120 fsw on 32% EAN down in the keys. So far my deepest dive has been 85 ffw on 32% EAN.

I'd highly recommend that you get your nitrox certification, I just finished mine a few weeks ago. It's an easy certification, with the only prerequisite being Advanced Open Water. Just remember, that along with any advanced technique comes the risk associated with messing it up. (O2 toxicity, etc...)

Wil