45 MILES TO THE OIL RIGS
I have a passion for spearfishing. As I have traveled on boats from Australia through the South Pacific to the Caribbean waters, it is my favorite sport. When the anchor goes down then it’s in the water to see what’s for dinner. The only line fishing I do is trolling while underway on our sailboat and casting from the dock or from the boat. I’d rather see what I am catching and it’s good exercise.
For extreme spearfishing, I join my mate Kurt and his friends in Texas for fun off of the oil rigs. We go out 45 miles from Port O’Conner and drop down on the rigs. The water is so clear and the coral growth on the structures are better than some of the reef systems in the Caribbean.
Oil Rig
Our last time out I dropped down to 130’ and just hung onto a pylon waiting to see what comes up from the murky bottom at 200’. There are plenty of snapper, grouper, ling and amberjacks. This day, the other guys were finding and leading their fish through the rig legs when a huge amberjack passed from my left to right just below me. POW! After a great head shot it didn’t move. This is a good thing. If you don’t get a good shot this fish will drag you all over the Gulf. Our spears are attached to the guns with braided leader wire, not strings. If a big fish wants to take you sightseeing then you have to wrap the gun or line around the rig. Without getting tied up yourself.
And more oil rigs
Snapper Catch
Looking at my dive computer I knew I had to do a decompression stop. I nailed the AJ at 180’. I tried to remove the spear from his head but it wouldn’t move. I wrapped him up in the wire and with my arm around him I started for the surface. After a couple decompression stops, I then did a 15 ft. safety stop with a regulator from the boat and breathing 80% oxygen to wash out all of the excess nitrogen in my system. The AJ hadn’t twitched the whole time I was surfacing. When I broke the surface I said to my mate Gary that the AJ is dead but I can’t get the spear out of his head. He pulled the big fish and my gun on board. All the sudden I heard Gary yelling Aussie adjectives…the AJ had come back to life!! He was thrashing all over the boat with a spear sticking out of his head. Gary was hopping all over the boat trying to get away from this thrashing 62 lb Amberjack. I’m glad he didn’t do this trick on me while I was surfacing.
Happy Whitey with his 62 lb Amber Jack
He finally settled down and it was another great day out with Kurt and the boys. We got our limit on Snapper, Grouper Ling and AJ’s. And on the way back, as always, we traded a case of beer for a garbage bag of shrimp on a Mexican shrimp boat.
