Spear fishing The 26

Wed. July 27^th:  

   I’ve worked all night and finally go to bed around 4:15am. My alarm vibrates to wake me up at 5am and I send Nick a text to let him know that I am up. Shortly after, Nick pulls up to my house and we stop for some coffee and breakfast on the way to the marina. 10 minutes later we’re on the beach and in a boat taxi to take us out to our boat.

   On our way out to “The 26”, which is a deep underwater rock formation 26 miles out to sea, we pass a pair of Humback whales who are breaching the surface repetitively.  It is a thing of beauty to witness. We watch them jump and play for about 10 minutes before moving on to trek the rest of the distance to our open water oasis.

   Upon reaching The 26, we select our spear tips and attach our float line buoys to our guns. Eager to get wet, and get some fish, we throw on our masks and fins, and plummet into the water. After only a few minutes and a few dives down, the fish start to appear at reachable depths. Huge shoals of Big eyed Jacks, Rainbow runners, another rainbow sided mystery fish, and Amber Jacks, Snapper, Mahi, and Black finned tuna a little deeper. All you can see is blue in all directions. The summit of the rock formation is a full 80 feet down. This is open, deep water free diving and it is a little spooky. Also, it is easy to lose you bearings while rapidly drifting in the currents. A one minute 40 foot dive can easily take you 30 to yards from your previous position.  3 or 4 dives while focused on the fish and bam.. you’re 100 yards away from where you thought you were.

   I see a shoal of Big Eyed at about 30 feet of depth and dive down. There are so many targets I just select the fish that is most directly in front of me and presenting his profile. I take my shot, hitting the fish directly under its spine in the center of its length, perfectly locking the barbs around the opposite side of its spinal column.

   The fish immediately dives and fights like a madman, starting to pull me down. I kick out hard to try and surface the fish, but lose my right fin while I am still around 30 feet down. Now it is much harder to fight the fish, being one finned and awkward. I get momentarily confused as to what to do. Do I go for my rapidly sinking fin while the fish is still jerking me down, and I’m running out of breath? Or, do I forget the fin and surface by dropping the gun and let the buoy do some of the work, (I can’t swim the fish up with one fin, he is too strong).

   I drop the gun but keep a hold of the buoy line, making sure that it stays taught while I surface for air. Once on the surface, I signal the boat that I need them to come over and start to hand line the fish up. I make some headway bringing the fish up, but he is still fighting like the devil and making it difficult to stay afloat.  A moment later I see Nick swim up under me and attempt to grab the Jack by the tail. After a couple of attempts, he succeeds and swims the jack up to me. I snatch the fish by the tail to take control of its fighting power, and wait for the boat.

   At one point, I am swimming along under water and get a strange 6^th sense warning. I react by turning slow flips and circles to check for sharks in a spherical 360 degree manner. I don’t see anything threat, so I tell myself that I’m just spooking myself and surface for air. The second that I hit surface, I hear the guys on the boat. They are all screaming at me to get back to the boat and that there is a good sized shark in the area. Meanwhile, I’m a couple hundred yards from their position. So, I just go back underwater to not splash around on the surface, and calmly make my way back towards the boat, occasionally circling and flipping to check my surroundings.

   We each shot a couple of fish, Nick and I. And had a great day on the water.

We will now be running sportfishing, spearfishing, surfing and snorkel tours. Check out our site, www.jacosportfishing.com


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