Deep Water Trip with Russell Elkins & Crew - July 26, 2008© Photos by Mark Miller © Hi-Res Source
This was a deep water Diving Trip by Russell Elkins of Morgantown, West Virginia. He brought along his 2 Kids Cody(14) and Alyse(16) and also Marc Britt of Helena. Russ just invested a bunch of money in high end HD Video Equipment and wanted to try it out on some of the Gulf's Deep Clear Water Rigs. Unfortunately the complicated sophisticated equipment gave us technical problems and we did not get any footage. Adding to the problems was the fact that I brought my housing, but somehow managed to leave the video camera at the house. Therefore, we made these great dives, but have no underwater photography to show it. The visibility was meager on top (20'), but below 40 feet of depth, it really opened up to better than 200 feet. AJ's were easy prey, although not many showing over 40 pounds. On the second dive, I poked a nice Scamp, but had to fight off the Barracuda. Hitting them with the butt of my speargun did not do much to deter them and all I got in the end was the head. It is interesting that these Cuda give us so much trouble with Scamp, Grouper, and Snapper, but they don't seem too interested in the AJs. Marc Britt shot a nice AJ (his first) and shared in the catch of a decent Hammerhead Shark with Russ. Russ caught an AJ on Rod which was much smaller, but still legal. Alyse caught a large White Trout. We watched a Sea Turtle and also bagged a couple Spiny Lobster. I tried to subdue an AJ I speared and he ended up knocking off my Mask at 100 feet. I could not locate it and could not get my buddy's attention so I went up to the surface. I was greeted by Russ and asked for some help and realized he had no mask as well. We eventually got him and ourselves to the boat less 2 Masks. We decided to head back north and work on some Snapper, but we hit some really bad weather coming from the Northwest. Our 5 knot - 1 foot forecast turned into 20-30 knots - 6 foot seas and we were headed straight into it. It made our Journey very slow and trying. The weather pushed us more east and added 3 hours to our journey. We were not able to hit our snapper holes and had to settle for what we had. Even still, it was an enjoyable trip that encompassed 17.5 hours (3AM to 8:30PM), 165 miles, and 103.4 gallons of fuel. See Russel's previous Trips: |_June 2006_| |_June 2005_| |_ July 2004_|
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