Sachem August 12, 2005
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Just a couple of fish. |
Today was a great day of diving aboard the Dina Dee II. Tally for the day was 6 passengers, 31 Fluke, 8 Lobster, and an assortment of seabass and tog.
We left Barnegat Light at 7:00 for an inshore dive. Captain Roger was out of commission for the day, so I was asked to help out. We hit the wreck about 8:30, and I dropped in to tie in. Once this task was complete, I began a quick trip around to aquatint myself with the wreck, a low lying wooden structure with many ribs and relief in the 6 foot range. Immediately my reel jammed, so I discarded it, and followed one rib at a time for navigation. Seabass and tog were out in great numbers, and every time I swam a few feet a fluke would jump out from under me. Every time I shot one, two more would swim away. The wreck was littered with them. By the time I came up there were eight in my bag, ranging from 17 to 27 inches.
Captain George dropped in after I surfaced.Inflatable Water Slide I figured I had clean off the wreck, he would come up with less fish. WRONG! He came up with another bag of fluke and a few lobsters. Being a shallow wreck, I now had enough surface interval to jump in for round 2. George had thrown down the gauntlet, and we were obligated to respond.
By the end of the day George and I called it a draw. We had equal numbers of fluke, but he also had lobster, while I had seabass and tog. The rest of the group had varying degrees of success, but everyone went home with lots of fish. It took us 2 hours for us to fillet all the fish. No one was permitted to leave the boat without fish or lobster. We sat and talked and had a great time while cleaning the fish.
What a great day!
Tags: dive, SCUBA, scuba nj, scuba training, wreck diving