Who gets the fish?

Suppose you're part of a boat crew and one of the divers, lets call him diver A, an experienced diver but who's not familiar with the spot goes off in the wrong direction. You yell to the boat driver to let diver A know that the spot is where you are at. When diver A makes his way over to you he tries to convince you that the spot is where he was previously. You welcome him to continue where he was and say that you are continuing where you are. He then decides to tag along with you. At one point you shoot a fish out of a school and leave it down there on the shaft so a second shot can be taken on one of his companions by diver A. Diver A is not around but finally appears and notices you have a fish on, with urgency you point down and make a shooting signal with your hand. He dives and shoots a fish in the 14lb range. You then busy yourself with retrieving your fish and stringing it during which time the current moves you away from diver A. When you finish stringing the fish you look around for diver A and see him maybe 50 yards away waving and calling.

You swim over against the current and upon arrival are told by diver A that the fish has entangled itself in the bottom structure and he can't retrieve it, on that particular day diver A was not performing optimally. At this point you make an assessment dive and realize that you can't compensate in your right ear and therefore can't descend. You inform diver A of this and are told to take your time. After repeated hawking, nose blowing and attempted equalization you finally feel that you can attempt the recovery.

Bear in mind that diver A is using a reel which you really despise, and is using clear mono shooting line in the 200lb range about which he was told that it's too light and not very visible. Visibility is poor to the point you can barely make out the shadow of the structure from the surface.

You make an exploratory dive still not fully oxygenated and see the fish tangled on the bottom with a nurse shark trying to eat it. The sense of urgency doubles as you head up and try to breath up properly this time. Because of poor visibility you can't position yourself directly over the fish since you can't see it and must take the long way down along the reel line which he's holding, this increases descent time and decreases your bottom time. When you get there again you do your best to follow the nearly invisible shooting line going in and out of holes and under ledges till you finally get to the fish. The shaft is nowhere to be seen. You grab the fish, nurse shark gone, and pull on it a little to see where the shooting line is. To your surprise you feel the line pop and the fish is free of it. No other thing to do but head up at this time. You brain the fish at the surface and hand it over to diver A who then starts reeling in the line. With alarm you stop diver A from bringing up the line for fear of losing the shaft and explain the situation to him.

On your third dive you follow the line down the same way dreading the maze of shooting line at the bottom. On the bottom the shaft is nowhere to be seen so you pull on the shooting line slightly to see in which direction it could possibly be. Suddenly you're looking at the end of he shooting line in your hand. You think "f*ck" because with this viz there's very little chance of seeing that spot again. Taking one last scanning look around you mark what looks like it could be a small cloud of sand that was thrown up after a struggle. Quickly the thought runs through your mind that it's unlikely that the sand still hasn't settled from picking up the fish and that you're at the end of your air. You realize that this is the last chance of getting anywhere near that spot and push for the little cloud of sand. When you get there you make a quick deduction at which of the closest holes to look and then you notice about a foot of shaft sticking out. Hoping that the flopper is not engaged in the rock you grab the shaft and pull it out. On the surface you present the shaft to diver A who gives you a thumbs up.

Diver A was able to rig his gun again and continue diving for the rest of the day.

The question then arises; who gets the fish?

Quote from SettingSteel

its up to the shooter to do whats right after he has the fish

What is "what's right" in this case?

Quote from SettingSteel

its a personal choice if the shooter decides to give his buddy the pescado great, if he doesn't thats ok too

Why is it the shooters choice on what to do with the fish? He's not in possession of the fish, what gives him the absolute right to decide as opposed to abiding by the "right thing to do" in that situation?

We're dealing here with an unspoken contract and there are expectations on each side. These expectations are based on the ethical "what's right" of each individual. If the shooter does not subscribe to the same ethical understanding does this mean that even on this one occasion the person who assisted should come out the loser with the only reimbursement being the knowledge to not waste his time helping the shooter in the future?

Without further ado I will state my take on it. In this situation I'm in possession of the fish. I can brain it, gut it, put it in the cooler and make ceviche out of it right there. If I choose to give the fish to diver A so he can "do the right thing" it would be babying him. I do this with my good friends or people I deem deserving in one way or another. As it happens I end up diving with a different spectrum of people some of which do not deserve babying IMO. So my choice would be #2 with #4 being a mitigating clause.

How can you say that the fish is the shooter's if at the moment of your interjection the fish is lost? He would never be able to get it back on his own. If you choose to say "I can't do this right now, I'm not equalizing properly and overall I'm not in a condition to retrieve anything." It's over for the fish and shaft. It belongs to the next person who happens on that spot and finds it. In this case you save the shaft, a 50 - $60 favor, and keep the fish.

It ties in to some of the discussions I've seen on lost and found guns. It's funny to me, I believe finders keepers. You can offer a reward and hope for the best but if they want to keep it that's it. The law sees it that way too, something about maritime salvage law. Like I said before the exception is if it's a gun belonging to someone you know and have a good relationship with. If someone found my gun and I found out through a third person that knows us both, I would never insinuate to this third person that his friend should give me the gun back.

Hey Davie, do you remember our Russian dickhead friend, the safety nazi? On my first outing with him he finds this anchor lodged in a rock in like 45fsw. Of course he can't get to it so when I get to the boat he tells me about it in a matter of fact way that it's there for me to recuperate. I jump back in the water and swim over to the spot, about 50 yards from the boat, find the anchor and swim it up. I tried to hail the boat but do you think he was paying attention? I reasoned it's easier for me to swim to the boat than to try and get his attention with the weight of the anchor dragging me down. It wasn't easy swimming with the anchor if anyone has done it before. When I got to the boat and gasped out "grab the anchor" he was looking at me with amazement. He said "I didn't expect that from you." and I said "It was easier than trying to get your attention." I left him the anchor but I've always regretted it. Especially considering what a dickhead he turned out to be. So to avoid regrets I believe in keeping things fair in the first place. You shoot fish, you get fish, you have fish... you don't get fish, you don't have fish.

I just solved a little problem that I wanted to share with you guys. It bugged me that after making a vote I could no longer see who voted for what, this has also happened to me on SB before. I made the poll public to begin with so I knew the results should be available to everybody. After searching for an hour I found the info; all you have to do is click on the number to the right of the poll bars and you can see who voted.

I face the same issues. I have to say though that I only confronted these issues for the first time and continuously here in the US. I never even heard of other "moral/ethical standards" until I came here. I think that starting to spearfish in a place like Cuba one acquires a pretty much standard and consistent (throughout that geographical location) outlook which is based on the reality of the place not some invented ideals. This is why I prefer diving with my Cuban crew.

LOL I did that with my brother when he came to visit. I called him over and pointed the turd out to him. He was pretty credulous since I just showed him a nurse shark. Couldn't figure out what the turd was and reached out and almost touched it. One of the best laughs I ever had.. Turd fish. Rolo, you know the story about the boy who cried wolf?