As most fishermen know, gag grouper season is closed for the next several months. The week before the season closed, we were lucky enough to find some awesome water visibility, which enabled us to end the season by spearing some nice grouper.
Since the water was so clear, my father, Alex Spring and myself decided to load up the boat with our spear fishing gear and head out to our favorite ledges and rock piles. As we anchored, we began to put on our wetsuits and got ready to hop in the water to check out the area. The first day, we went out to dive some shallow spots. After fishing the spot for a few minutes, I slipped into the water and instantly saw a large school of gags eating some fresh chum.
After loading my gun, I breathed up and made a dive to the bottom. As I was lying on the bottom waiting for a shot on a large gag, I noticed a big flounder swimming above the reef. I took the shot on the flounder and put the sh in the boat. After reloading, I heard my name being called in order to put a second shot on a sh. My dad had just shot a decent cobia and needed a second shot to finish him off.
After a few minutes of fighting the sh, I was able to grab the cobia and subdue him. He immediately went into the cooler next to the flounder. After a few more dives, I was able to sneak up on a one of the larger gags and place a shot on his upper back. After thrashing around like crazy for a few minutes he managed to tear free from the spear and escaped into a hole. Although we were unable to land that one, we were able to shoot a few more gags before the current picked up. Before heading in, we decided to troll around and look for spots for to explore the next day. After trolling for a little while, we found an awesome area with rocky, hard bottom and scattered ledges that were also showing sh on the sh finder. We knew exactly where we would be making our first dive the next day.
As were riding out on day two, big grouper were on our minds. After chumming the new spot that we found the day before, Alex and I dove in to see what was going on. After swimming around and shooting a few keeper gags (and another flounder) we still did not find the large grouper that we wanted. After a few more dives, I looked over to see Alex with an absolute giant gag. The sh weighed 15 pounds. Although it would be pretty hard to find another sh of that size, we did manage to find the honey hole of gags. Every time I took a breath and dove to the bottom, I found myself either on top of a large keeper gag grouper, or a big male hog snapper. Soon enough we had our limit of gags, climbed back in the boat and called it a day.
Following up on an epic day like the one we had before would be tough and to make it tougher, on day three, we had to be in by noon to avoid the rain. As we headed out in the Gulf with overcast skies, the day’s prospects seemed dim. We had 2 hours to spear 6 grouper in less than ideal conditions. Feeling con dent, we accepted the challenge and made our way back into the water at our first stop. Within 5 minutes, we both shot and landed our first groupers of the day. After that, it seemed to be too easy as we shot our limit of gag grouper as well as a few bonus hog sh to top off the day.
As I climbed into the boat with my last grouper, Alex was making her way back to the boat with hers. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a 6 foot tiger shark swimming erratically around the back of the boat and making a lot of sharp turns. It was obviously excited by the smell and sounds of grouper being speared and was “lit up”, clearly showing the telltale signs and markings that are special to the Tiger Shark. Unfortunately, my dive partner was still in the water. After yelling for her to come in, the shark made a hard left and followed Alex right up until she was in the boat. It was definitely a close call, but everyone made it out safely and we had our limit of gags with time to spare. We met our challenge and with rain on the horizon, a cooler full of sh and a close encounter with a Tiger Shark, it was time to go home.
