Jan 11/2009 - Diving with Rolo

  • Pantoja and myself joined Rolo out of Stuart on Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny day with flat seas, zero current and unusually good viz for the area. A fun relaxed day with good friends. Rolo is a super host right down to the sandwiches :) A few fish were taken by all but nothing noteworthy. The deepest we went was 60'. It was great to see Sergio back in the water. Thanks Rolo for taking us out.



    A feeding frenzy of pelicans at the cleaning station, I'm not used to seeing so many so I found it interesting. One swallowed what I believe to be a big fish head that it couldn't get down so his throat looked like it was going to explode.


  • Any dive that ends with everyone safely back at the dock is a good one. Looks like a beautiful day.


    One swallowed what I believe to be a big fish head that it couldn't get down so his throat looked like it was going to explode.


    I have seen the blue herons around my parent's house eat some amazingly big fish. Even hardhead catfish, which seem like they would kill the birds. Funniest I ever saw, though, was a pelican trying to manage a big blue crab right at the shoreline. The pelican couldn't get a handle on the crab, and eventually dropped it, at which point the crab grabbed hold of the pelican's foot and wouldn't let go. Pelican take-offs aren't the most graceful events in any case, but watching one try to get airborne with a big crab latched to one foot left me rolling on the dock.

  • Glad to have you guys finally come up. Thanks for putting a dent on the local cuda population. I'm also glad that the conditions were this good. It was certainly a nice day to be out there.

  • Did you guys manage any sheepshead? I can't imagine you hit any of our regular spots in the winter and didn't run into the aggregations of convict fish. Also, how was the inshore viz?

  • Yes we got some sheepshead, it was just as you would expect. We only did two stops in shallow. The viz was good at the first one, Rolo said he's never seen it like that. On the other spot due to the turbulence it wasn't as good but very doable. That was at the end of the day, in the morning the viz was bad so we skipped then shallow spots.


    I found the sheepies to taste good but kind of like a margate the yield wasn't phenomenal. Still a good food fish when the other species are not around. In terms of ease of cleaning yield and taste cuda for me is preferable.

  • Pargo I wonder if those Pelicans taste anything like chicken? next time maybe u can you stone one for me?! :)

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] Autocross Junkie

    Edited once, last by TurboRon ().

  • I have seen lots of pelican gather like that before but not as close as that. That is some nice pic. you should of throw the meal in the middle to see how they attack each other:0 is always fun

  • I knew a spearo in Cuba that shot a pelican. He was surfacing and the pelican was sitting in the water above him so he shot it. He said there was very little meat on it and that he wouldn't do it again.


    I was doing exactly that, throwing the guts and heads to the pelicans and seeing who ended up with it. At some point I even felt sorry for this one that was off to the side and never got anything so I made sure to throw him a piece too.

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