The Deathstick Tastes Blood!

Carpooled down to Harker's Island with Pete, aka Silent Killer on Friday but we got a really late start, not getting the boat out until noon. I wolfed down a couple of hotdogs from the gas station when we were gassing up- and ended up with chilidogs instead of my mustard/relish/slaw. The chili looked a bit 'experienced', but I was hungry.

The seas were a bit rough on the way out- and overcast. But the forecast called for no wind, and maybe a chance of showers. We were worried about vis because for the past week or so, there has been a layer of cold green water on the bottom. Silent Killer sneakily suggested I drop first when we were out at Big 10. The water looked beautiful on top. I started down and at about 40' started to get vertigo because I could see- but not the bottom. Sure enough- at around 60 it was like diving into a greenish cloud. I aborted because vis was all of 10 feet. I did a quick bounce on another spot and found structure and about 15' of vis, but nothing but juvenile fish.

We decided to head further out with the hope of better visibility. Good choice! SK drops on some great structure- but says the vis was just okay. He comes back with his biggest snapper of the year. He said he found a hole with three spiny lobster, so I grab my old gun and clip a lobster loop and bag to it. I back drop the spot and vis was amazing compared to the soup I was on earlier in the day. I manage a good gag, but the big fish were keeping well out of the way. Never did see the lobster.

Due to the generousity of Ken Jones of Deathstick Spearguns, and Spearfishing Planet, I was lucky enough to win a recent contest and had a beautiful custom-made Deathstick with me. I really wanted this first dive with it to be a successful one, but didn't have it rigged yet to be able to carry my plethora of crap with me when I was lobstering. Yes, I'm one of those divers who has everything. Trust me, it pays off.

SilentKiller drops on the submarine wreck out there. There are big grouper on it, guarded by bigger sandtigers but he came back up having only seen one grouper, and none of his buddies. It was more of a 'gotta dive the sub' event than a spearfishing one. He said the vis on the sub wasn't as good as the ledges we were on, so we head back to where we were. We marked a bunch of spots while I was waiting for my surface interval. My nitrox mix was light for the depths we were diving so I was getting close to deco on my drops. If anyone wants giant amberjack, come to NC. Some of these were as long as I was. I used to think they scared the fish away, but I'm of the mind now that it makes the big fish curious. About every dive, we found ourselves in the middle of a swarm of them.

Remember that chilidog from paragraph one? I do. As I puked it up in dead-calm seas, SilentKiller gives me some words of wisdom: never eat anything that's two-for-two-dollars while diving.

I dive again with my old gun (still hoping to get a lobster), and nail a snapper and struggle with getting him on the stringer, so I load up my 2nd shaft hoping some big fish will come take a look at the commotion. I pull back on the band and the gun slips off my hip. I figure it must have been pressing against my computer or something. I try again- and it happens again. Talk about timing- my old 3-piece gun is so worn that the trigger housing is flexing when I load up the 2nd band. Great. My new gun is on the boat. Of course, I spot some big grouper so I go up and tell SK where they are. He drops in and grabs a nice scamp, but the big boys stayed in the sand. We're not far from a spot where we spotted some huge grouper, and I still have half a tank from the early drop in bad vis.

I decide I need to give the deathstick a chance- it's just been on the boat looking pretty while I screw around with my old (and now broken) gun. I drop in on the spot, but don't see much. I'm hanging pretty far off the bottom, trying to save air and deco. A few big guys are out there, but I don't have the time to play hide and seek. I'm very bummed- my new gun is going to come back unblooded.

I go up really slowly because of the earlier close-to-deco. The vis is simply amazing at 20 feet of depth- I can see forever. I look around at the amberjack swimming below, enjoying the last dive of the day (and the first dive day in a month!). And I look again. Some of those amberjack look funny. THOSE AREN'T AMBERJACK! Screw it, I'm going back down. At about 50' I get close enough to the swarm of Cobia. There were at least 9 of them flying in formation. My gun was unloaded since I was coming up, and I struggle to get the band pulled back. I only get one band loaded, even though I'm going to be line shafting a long shot. One of them way down is a monster, and the one closest to me is legal, but dwarfed by the others. I split the difference and dive bomb on the next biggest (and closest one). I stretch way out, take careful aim as the cobia are starting to swim away. I purposefully didn't go for a head shot, but just behind it to hopefully get a solid hit. I aim, and the laser-accurate Deathstick delivers as promised. I see the shaft go through the fish enough for the flopper to stick, and I go straight up, not wanting a fight at this depth and with my computer bitching at me. I wrap the line around the gun a few times so I have a solid lever to pull on and look down and see what the cobia were after. A huge stingray was just sitting on the bottom and the cobes were just milling around above him waiting for the next buffet line to start up. I go up to the boat (still relatively slowly) and the cobia cooperates by swimming in circles below me.

If he'd swim up, there's a chance he would throw the shaft, so I'm happy with the situation. I make it to the boat and yell for SK that I have a fish. He's looking at me kind of weird because all he sees is my gun. I slowly reel the fish up to me, grab the spear and the Cobia goes apeshit. I'm holding the spear and the fish is kicking so hard that the 5/16th spring steel shaft is flexing back and forth. I stick the tip of the spear out of the water and yell for SilentKiller to help get the big boy in the boat. He grabs the gaff and hooks him and the fish calms down. He asks me to take the spear out before he pulls it in the boat. I was really hesitant because if he kicked off the gaff, I could still have a chance of grabbing him with the spear. I pull the spear out, Pete hauls the fish in, and what ensues, I can only describe as some kind of nautical cage fighting. I'm still in the water, and I just hear Pete cussing and the fish flailing around. It reminds me of that scene in A Christmas Story where the kid describes his dad as a furnace-fighter. After what ensued, the fish not having a spear with which to toss around was probably a very good idea. The scuffle finally stops by the time I get around to the ladder. As I climb up, Pete is sitting on the fish cooler, a good third of the fish sticking out of it. He says to me "sit on this thing so this fish will die!" There is blood all over the boat. I'm not sure of the battle that ensued after the fish went up, but I'm glad it is only the cobia's blood. Pete goes to grab a brush and start scrubbing down the boat and I'm getting my tank off when the fish goes nuts again, jumps out of the cooler and thrashes around the boat. Cobias are well known for causing damage when they come on the boat 'green'. Pete's yelling "stick something in it!"- so I grab my stringer, which has a sharp point on it and jab it in the side, and step on it to pin it down, then grab the knife off my BC and stab him in the head, hitting off-center the first thrust and then sinking it between the eyes. That did it- finally. Just in case, we leave the knife in a good while. The boat is filled with even more blood. I ask for a photo op to show off the new gun, but we only have Pete's camera-phone. No matter, as you can see how thrilled I was to take home my second-even, and biggest Cobia.

Spearfishermen- heck, fishermen in general consider Cobia to be "the best-eating fish in the ocean."

Pete was on a mission to get his own Cobia after I explained that there were a large group of them just milling around the ray. He grabs my tank and BC, which had about 720PSI in it so he can take a look. I turn on the pony bottle for him, so if he does get something, he's not pressed for air.

I'm hopeful he'll get a fish, and I idle around following his bubbles, but he comes up empty-handed. The ray- and cobia-escorts had moved on. I've seen giant rays before, but I really need to concentrate on looking 'up' to see if there are cobia waiting for a meal. Apparently, when rays swim along the bottom, they stir up all kinds of creatures in the sand that the cobia love to eat.

We spend a little while cleaning up, but we've got a long way to go to get home. Fortunately the seas were beautifully calm. But, it wasn't going to help- even though we were running flat out in ideal seas, the sun was going down faster than we were going in. We get to the difficult channel run to the Harker's Island boat ramp, and hit sand. Pete jumps out and it's knee deep. I have too much gear with me as usual- but my pair of dive lights come in quite handy to spot the channel markers as we slowly make our way back. It was a late night, getting home but getting the cobia made the trip!