Fishing Adventures

So we have been living in Arugam Bay for 11 months now and I finally got the call that our backyard waters were clear enough to dive.  My friend Atta and I grabbed my gear and headed for the point. It was amazing to see the beautiful reef that we are usually surfing over but can't see because of the chocolate milk colored water.   It was still kind of murky and the skies were cloudy but there were fish.  I found a few fishy boulders and got a couple of the smaller fish, then it happened and I was engulfed by anchovies who weren't afraid of me but running from fish attacking them on all sides.   I shot 2 trevally  on back to back dives, and then as I was reloading, I saw this Barracuda coming in to feed so I wasted no time to get to the bottom and wait for a shot.  He came in slow and I could only see him in breaks between the millions of anchovies swimming in unison and sure enough curiosity kills, he saw me and had to get a closer look, and I nailed him in the sweet spot. It was quite a site to see.  

Some of my friends that helped carry all the gear and fish back; they were stoked to go home with fish for their families.  And we BBQ the Barracuda for family night and it fed all 30 people. 

So obviously I woke up early the next day went straight to the point, it took awhile to find the fish but when I did I couldn't reload fast enough.  In the distance I spotted some good reef and boulders so I took a rest and then a huge breath and went into relax mode on the bottom. I thought it was going to be a waste of a dive because there was absolutely no fish not even small ones, and then I found out why. This big toothed snapper was cruising around and now I was glad I took that rest and a big breath because he was very cautious and I had to hold forever before he gave me a shot.  I shot right through his gill plates but he still took off like a freight train and stripped off over 50 yards of line before he started getting tired. Wow what a rush, finally coming up on this still thrashing beast.  Had so much fun and got to bless so many families.  Thats what I call a win win situation.  Oh and how cute is my little poser Kenai; I cracked up when I saw this pic. 

So after 3 months of off and on fiberglassing and sanding on our homely boat it is finally sea worthy.   Babu came by after work the other day and said he finally had a day off after 3 weeks straight of work. He said he wanted to go fishing on my boat with me so I called up our Swedish friend Niklas and we were off at 5am the next day.  We set a game plan to go troll for kingfish but is was interrupted by birds crashing the ocean eating little sardines. So we rigged up and chased them around until we had about 50 sardines and headed for a big offshore exposed rock.  Babu has been fishing  since he was 10 years old and this was his first time to catch a fish on a rod and reel.  They use hand lines here which usually means if you catch fish your hands get all cut up by the line."Not much fun." As we slowly pulled up to the rock getting pounded by waves, Babu dropped in his sardine and before it even left the boats side a trevally jumped clean out of the water and the ocean air was filled with hoots and hollers from an extremely excited young man.  The action was great for about an hour and we all caught a bunch of fish, then headed for a place to dive.  Babu has gone from never-been-diving to holding his breath for over 2 minutes and diving around 20'.  Unfortunately the current was strong and the water was dirty but I did manage to drop down on the 2 biggest fish in the picture and took a shot.  It was a bad shot and by the time I reached the surface 3/4 of my line was gone.  I yelled at Babu and Niklas and told them I shot a big fish and Babu said "nooooooooo", so I grabbed my line and let the fish pull me through the water and as the wake peeled off my back they knew I wasn't lying. I was even a little surprised at how fast I was being pulled and soon found out the reason was I had actually shot 2 of the same fish.  We gave away all of the fish to families in need and paid Babu for his cut if we would have sold the fish; and everyone went home happy.