Thursday, November 21, 2013

You Don't Always Need a Rod & Reel to Catch a Nice Fish

 
 
 
Here in Nathan Visser's own words is the account of how he caught this beautiful grouper.
 
"Got this hog on a recent trip to Bahia Magdalena.  We started out at 5:00AM and left for a 3hr trip to the Thetis Bank.  The previous week, the captain reports seeing school of 30+ wahoo under the boat is 80 degree water.   When we got there the water was 74 degrees.  After 4 hours of diving, throwing chunk bait and flashers, we had 0 wahoo sightings.  We decided to try our luck with the grouper off the San Carlos Channel .  I was diving shallow in about 30 feet of water when I saw 4 grouper about 20-25 pounds each.  As I approached I saw a much larger grouper moving quickly away from the school.  I followed for about 20 yards and after losing sight decided to circle back for the 20-25 pounders.  I had 4 below me and dove down to pick out dinner.  As I descended, the larger grouper came back and rushed me, with his pectoral and dorsal fins fully extended.  He came within 5 feet of me before turning broadside and offering a perfect shot behind the gills.  He ran about 50 yards before poorly selecting a cave he could barely fit into.  The captain saw my buoy skipping across the water and came immediately over in the panga.  I stayed on the surface and applied tension to the line while the captain went to pick up Luis Espinosa to help me.  Luis arrived to assist and went down immediately to inspect without knowing what I had.  As he was diving down, I pulled on the line and the grouper came out of the cave face to face with Luis.  While he admitted afterwards he was torn between helping me and “accidently” cutting my line, he effectively applied the coup de grĂ¢ce and I got the fish of a lifetime."