Lazy Days of Diving
Dauphin Island, Alabama
October 26, 2004

As the snapper season winds down, David Biron and myself decided to take advantage of yet another beautiful day on the gulf as the forecast called for 2 foot seas or less.  Perfect!

The day goes off without a hitch as we get started at 0630 just as planned.  A short trip to the service station to gas up the boat and fill the coolers with ice and we are happily on our way to Dauphin Island.

Today would be different.  We would not be motoring to deep water, instead we are going
to intentionally dive the shallow rigs we normally pass up to get to the blue water.  Even if the water looks dirty we are going to give it our best effort.

We pass the tide line on the way out and the water changes color... a good sign.

The first spot looked good as we suited up. David encouraged me to go in first, and I promptly complied.  "What kind of visibility do you want?"  I asked David. "Enough to  see the end of my gun",  came his reply and that was about all we had.  Not as good as I like, so we relocated to the next rig to the west and the water got a little clearer.  We both put a couple of nice red snappers on the boat and I unloaded my gun on a spanish mackerel before getting back into the boat.

Our second spot was more productive as I continued to focus on my limit of red snapper and had it filled by 10:18 a.m.  Not a bad start.  David hunted snapper intermittently and shot a nice gag grouper while I was finishing off my limit of red snapper.  We also boated a couple of triggerfish.  I spot a cobia but it is inside the rig and if I were to shoot it, I'd be looking at major entanglement so I try to wait for it to come outside to play which it does not.  We dive here for a little while longer and then decide to go somewhere else.

Our third rig was a charm and in less than 50' fsw.   Basically, we had it covered from top to bottom and fish were everywhere.  We saw grouper, red fish, sheepshead, triggerfish, blue fish, red snapper, bonito and mangrove snapper all on this one spot.

Having shot my limit of red snapper, David had the place to himself and he made the best of it, taking his time and selectively picking out the largest of the stock.   In the meantime, I dived to the bottom and got a grouper of my own, breaking a band on my gun in the process.  David provides a spare and I'm back in action.  I make a couple of more dives and come up with two beautiful triggerfish.   A big bull shark swims up to take a look and meandered on back down.  Thank you!

By now I was running out of things to shoot with my gun and didn't want to rape the place so I opted to trade it for my underwater camera.  I swam down and took some pictures of a couple of red snapper, triggerfish and grouper.  I was having a blast!

As much as I hated to leave this place we opted to move on in search of some more grouper.

Our next couple of spots were in 60' fsw and ironically did not hold that much fish.  I'm always surprised how when you move just a mile away the fish population changes. We dive hard but can't find any legal grouper.

We stop back by a place we call the triple rig on the way back in.  The water was murky on top and had about 20' of vis sandwiched between a murky bottom.  Nothing here but blue fish and spades.

About 4:00 p.m. we head back in with two coolers of fish.   I can't think of a better way to spend a Tuesday.

Mike Wade
Stickmen Freedivers
Mobile, Alabama

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