The One That Didn't Get Away

This was the one that almost got away.

I was diving a shallow wreck in the surf zone off a beach in the southern Sea of Cortez.  Vis was only 10-15’, but was the best we’d had all week due to heavy surf.

The surge made diving a little spooky, with lots of jutting ribs, snags, cables and nets, but there was a ton of marine life. I was totally stoked to see what flourished on this apparently untouched spot.  In five minutes I saw several grouper (different species), big schools of goatfish and massed assorted bait, tropicals such as butterfly fish and Moorish idols, enormous (2’+) triggers (surgeonfish?), and a 5 foot green moray eel, out and cruising around.  All in less than 15’ of water.

I soon spotted what looked to be a dinner-sized orange fish maybe 8-10 feet away.  I stretched out, lined up with my small but usually powerful 70 cm euro, and placed a nice shot behind his head.  The fish twitched but didn’t spook, and when I pulled in the shooting line the spear came but the fish stayed.  What?!!  I was stunned.  Was my "shoulder shot" some weird illusion?  Wasn’t this stupid fish even slightly disturbed by being shot at?

Then I noticed him slowly sinking toward a V between two plates of the wreck, about to slip into a dark slot too small to follow.  Finally my brain clicked on enough to realize what was happening and do something about it before he disappeared forever.  I swam over, grabbed his tail, then gills, and got him to the surface without incident.  Closer inspection did in fact reveal a small, neat hole where I thought I had hit him.  It had been a perfect stone shot, but the tip had stopped at the fish’s spine and then fallen out when I pulled on it; the flopper had never penetrated. I brained him and made the short swim to the beach.

I’m still not sure if the spear reached the end of its shooting line and was stopped dead or if the fish was just really tough to penetrate, but its clear that he was at the outer limit of my gun’s range. Bagged is bagged, though, and dinner was great.