Pensacola Bay, 11/24/08

I REALLY wanted to try to freedive one of my inshore grouper spots today, but as soon as my arse hit the 57° water, I knew it wasn't happening. By the time I added enough neoprene to keep from choking on my nuts, I could hardly move. I felt like one of those kids all bundled up to play in the snow. So I chickened out and strapped on a tank. I don't know how those guys in California do it.

The old man was nursing a bad head cold and couldn't dvie, so he ran the boat and it was just me in the water, trying to see how many spots I could hit before the cold got to me. I managed 5 dives of about 25-30 minutes each, which produced a total of 8 gags all poured from the same 10-13 lb mold. No pics because A) we were racing an oncoming storm to get everything cleaned up after the trip and B) my marksmansip was embarassingly bad. I only lost one fish due to poor shot placement, but 4 of the 8 fish were considerably off target.

Aside from being cold, the weather topside cooperated (mid 60's), the visibility was good for the bay (12-15') and the current was light. Highlights for the day - two of the wrecks were covered with large red snapper in the 15-20 lb range, and we had two separate pods of 4-6 dolphins swim right up to, around, and under the boat.

Probably my last bay dive until spring, as the water will soon be in the upper 40's, with similar air temps.

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People can and do freedive the rigs all year long. The GOM is over 1000' deep on many of those rigs, so the temperature is a little more stable. The surface does get colder, of course, but not as cold as a place like Pensacola Bay, where most of the drainage comes from estuaries and shallower water that cools quickly when the winter arrives.

All of my best Bay spots are 35-45' deep. Even I can freedive that deep in good water. The challenge here is that visibility is rarely better than 15', and you are trying to drop on a very small artificial structure, and usually in a fair to strong current. I am confident that some of you guys who know what you are doing could manage it, and probably hunt it successfully. But for me, it makes a hell of a steep learning curve.

The Gulf can be a little better in terms of clarity and current, but there also isn't much structure shallower than about 90'. The good news is that the larger snapper, AJs and cobia often hang in mid water, so someone who could reach 60-70' and hang out for just a little while could probably hunt it successfully.

I don't know when, but one of these days I hope to get down your way!

I often hold my breath while on the bottom. Sometimes, after a minute or so, the grouper will poke their heads out of the structure to see where the guy blowing all the bubbles went. Bang. I have also been successful on occasion, by holding my breath for the last 15' of the descent, if I could see the structure that early. There is no doubt in my mind that freediving would be very successful, when possible.

I would be curious to hear how you might go about it. Figure you have a target like a small sunken boat, about 15' long and 4' wide, on a featureless bottom in about 40'. Visibility is about 15', so you are blind for the first 25'. The current in the bay is never zero. I know what you are probably thinking, but even right at high and low tide, there is water movement. Sometimes, the surface and bottom even have light currents in opposite directions!

It's impossible to get a marker buoy to sit exactly above the target. You have to allow a few feet of slack line to keep the weight firmly on the bottom, which means the buoy will be 15-20 feet down current of the actual wreck. So, from the moment you start down the line, you are swimming into the current.

One idea that I had was to drop a heavier weight, with a sizable float, say, 50' up current of the wreck. Hold on to the float, breath up, and start a descent while the current carries you back to the target. It might take a little trial and error to get the placement of the float right, but maybe it could work?

One more obvious concern. The visibility and current would make it difficult or impossible to keep track of a buddy during his dive.

We have an anchor that holds well in the sand. The problem with using the boat is two-fold, I think. First, the wnd and current are seldom in the same direction. So anchoring the boat with the required accuracy can be tough. Not impossible, but not easy. One technique that we use when H&L fishing small targets is to use a small secondary buoy (like a Coke bottle), tied with about 20' of line to the marker buoy. This gives you two reference points to line up on, and a fair estimate of wind and tide direction. The large pilot house on our boat really catches the wind, though, so it's still hard.

The other issue with anchoring the boat is the difficulty of assisting the diver. Short of cutting the anchor line, or letting it all out (600' on my boat), there would be no way to promply get the boat over to someone who was drifting away while struggling with a fish. We're inshore, and only 1/4 to 1/2 mile from shore, so they are not in danger of drifting out to sea. But boat traffic can be a real hazard

Thanks. And likewise, If you guys are ever up this way and want to dive the bay or Gulf, give me a shout.

The bay is sand or mud bottom through out. There are extensive grass beds in the shallows, but no natural structure (that I am aware of) in the rest. Escambia Bay and East Bay combine to form Pensacola Bay, and the whole thing drains through a single main pass to the GOM. That's why we get the substantial currents.

Fish will congregate on any available struture, even as simple as a few tires or cinder blocks. These fish will include mangrove snapper, grunts, small scamp, small gag grouper, hinds, juvenile snapper, and a few tropicals in the summer.

The larger grouper and snapper, however, are generally found only on wrecks that they can penetrate and hide in. People used to sink old fiberglass boats, which very often ended up up-side down. As long as there is some access for the fish, they turn into perfect hiding places. Piles of shopping baskets also make perfect grouper wrecks, because there are numeraous dead-end areas to hide in.

One of my favorite wrecks is a smalll fiberglass boat about 15' long. It happened to be sitting about 100' away from a set of about 20 tires which were tied with a rope to form a ring, with all the tires sitting upright. Until two years ago, the boat was inverted, and sucked down into the sand, with no way for the fish to get inside. So about two summers ago, we dug around it until we could lfit it with lift bags. Then we re-positioned it on top of the pile of tires. The whole thing is now about 4' tall and sits in a shallow depression with a max depth of about 36'. When I apprached it yesterday, it was covered with all manner of juvenile gags and scamp, too numerous to count. There were smaller red snapper and sheepshead circling just away from the wreck, and a steady stream of small mangroves darting in and out. I also saw two angelfish, a filefish, and a few spadefish. When I first approached, three grouper surprised me when they darted out from under the boat. Usually they will try to hide. Anyway, as I was unprepared to shoot, the first two of about 20 lb class were quickly gone. But I managed a quick hip shot and nailed the third, of about 12 lbs!

I'm referring to the larger, wheeled, metal shopping carts in this case. The tires don't seem to attract much growth, but barnacles, anemones, and other misc. stuff readily attaches to the fiberglass boats. We don't get coral of the type that you are probably thinking of. Just an accumulation of barnacles, oysters, and a few soft spongy looking things.

I also have a spot that consists of 7 plastic 55 gallon drums with the tops cut off and a heavy chunk of concrete in the bottom. Grouper seem to love them, but no encrustation develops on the plastic.

On their side. They are open topped, with 3-4 smaller holes of 4-6" diameter placed randomly around the sides.

I happened upon them while diving once, and they were all standing upright without a fish in sight. I laid a few of them on their sides, and made it a point to dive them again a few weeks later. The sideways barrels had numerous fish, while the upright barrels had few or none. So I laid them all on their sides, and moved them close enough together that I could see them all from a central point.

They don't tend to hold fish as large a s bigger structures do, but they're often good for a keeper grouper.

Quote from seahunter49

When I think about my general approach to diving I realize that I alway try to have zero influence on the environment other than the fish I remove.

If I were diving in an area with natural live bottom or other naturally occurring habitat, I would absolutely agree. And the Marine Patrol will BURY you (min $5000 fine in Alabama, not sure about FLA) if you get caught sinking a reef inshore. I've just taken a loose interpretation in "relocating" existing stuff that has already been down a while. In the end, I think even the H&L guys benefit. They have no idea why the boat they sunk isn't producing fish. I can prop it up on some nearby tires or cinder blocks, and Ta-dah, grouper hotel!

Some do. One of my favorite wrecks survived hurricane Ivan in 2005, only to be lost the next summer when the big ocean going tugboats towed the Aircraft carrier Oriskany out to be sunk as an artificial reef. I can only guess that the propwash from the big tugs was enought to dislodge it and send it tumbling.

The first time that we tried to prop a boat up on some cinder blocks, we found it 100' feet away the next weekend. We moved it back, proped it up, and tied it down with some home made screw in anchors (like they use to tie down mobile homes). It moved again. That is the same boat that we later moved and tied to the ring of tires. We have learned that it takes a lot to hold a lightweight fiberglass hull in place. It has stayed in place now for about two years. Once the sand has a little time to rearrange itself, the whole thing seems to reach an equilibrium with the tides and doesn't move much.

The storms do change things though. I had two good wrecks that were each made up of a smaller hull upside down and sitting inside a larger hull. In both cases, Hurricane Ivan ripped the smaller hull out and it now sits about 20' away. Another wreck was an intact 28' sportsfishing boat. Hurricane Ivan ripped the pilot house off that one, and deposited it about 30' away. That one is not nearly as productive now. Some of the heavier wrecks were also partially buried with sand. Time will tell if they will eventually uncover.