We departed the dock for Riley's on the 25th in the evening as
usual. We arrived to find calm conditions, and the Gulf Stream running across
the hump. Let me tell you a little about the Gulf Stream. The warm clear waters
of the Caribbean drive northward through the straights of Yucatan between the
Yucatan Peninsula and the western tip of Cuba. The water enters the Gulf of
Mexico as the loop current, turns south, and skirts the Florida Keys and heads
up the East coast of the United States to meet the Labrador current somewhere
off North Carolina. The Gulf Stream runs at 3 to 4 knots off of the Keys. When
we arrived at Riley's, the current was between 3 and 4.5 knots across the hump.
Remember, all of that water that usually occupies the first 4,000 feet or so of
water is pouring across the bank 85 feet deep.
We dropped our first set of fish traps, and they were swept away. We dropped
them again, and they were swept away. We put some divers in, and they were swept
away. We put some more in, and their floats were pulled under water and they
were swept away. We scratched our heads.
On day 2, the current was a little stronger, if anything. We couldn't perform
fish counts, so we decided to try to pick up the pinger tag receivers that are
set out there. I had to learn to drop divers 150 yards up-current on a "hot
drop" so they could find a receiver stand sticking 3 feet off the bottom in 15
feet of visibility. We dropped a lot of divers, but did eventually recover all
of the receivers.
On day 3, the current held strong, and we did 3 mile drift dives. We'd put the
divers in in the middle of the bank, and pick them up a mile or so down-current
of the bank. It was getting a little silly. Since the divers couldn't carry a
float, we gave them all of our technical SMB's so we could find them 3 miles
away. Thankfully, there was very little wind, so the Spree drifted at the same
speed as the divers.
Day 4 we decided to set the fish traps by hand. 2 divers would swim the traps
into the designated trapping site. By swim, I mean hold onto the trap for dear
life and try to guide it to a place with some known landmarks so it could be
found again. We immediately started catching fish. The fish would have acoustic
tags implanted in their bellies, so we could track them using the
afore-mentioned receivers. By now, the visibility had cleared up to 100-200
feet, and you could actually see what was going on around you. The current was
still howling, however.
We tagged a total of 11 fish, including 5 mutton snapper. The plan was for 20
muttons, but we spent the first half of the week trying to figure out how to
work in the conditions we found. All of the acoustic receivers were recovered
and re-deployed, and we saw thousands of muttons. We had reporters from the
Miami Herald and Florida Sportsman magazine, when their articles come out, I'll
forward them on.
We had a great trip and fun times, maybe the conditions will be a little better
next year....
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