hunting in black sea

[vali]

black sea
depth: 2-12 meters
water temp: 6 - 10 Celsius
visibility: arround 4 metters

[vali]

forgot 2 mention:
5 mm seac sub neoprene [one piece]
seac sub genesis fins
seac sub asso 45 gun

[vali]

a detaile from this fish
in my language we call him "calcan"
i do not know in english....if anyone?....10x

[virgil]

Best ressource for fish identification: http://fishbase.org
Your fish appears to be Psetta Maeotica - in English/French that would be a turbot.
There are few other members hunting in the Black Sea: Bulgaria (Dobs) and probably others on the Turkish side. Maybe they will also contribute to this thread with their catches.
I'm still haven't pulled the trigger on a flat fish for fear of hitting the rocks behind it. They're also not that easy to catch by hand.
Anyway nice tasty catch. Bravo!

Virgil

[vali]

10x man
turbot...ok
that one had 5 kg...i say "had" because is a very delicious fish...."was in fact":P

[wet]

Hi Vali,

I'm curious, is the water that you dive in freshwater or saltwater or a mix? I've read the Caspian sea is mixed brackish water, while the Black sea is freshwater on top of deep saltwater. But I also read that the Black sea surface is too salty to be called real freshwater (river water is freshwater or sweetwater). Do turbots live in freshwater? I thought they were only marine (saltwater) fish. When you dive there, is there any tide at all, like the ocean, or is it always flat? I think that it is also called the Euxine Sea. Do any trees grow right on the shore, or is it all rocky shores? Curious about the Black sea.

DDeden

[Old Man Dave]

Fantastic catch. That's definitely a turbot. How many did you have? There looks like a few. Turbot are one of our most prized fish but we can't catch them like that any more. We get a few using handspears and scuba but even then we have to dive deep and in very strong tides. Is your catch very special or is that a normal catch. If that is normal I'm gonna be visiting you soon.

Dave

[vali]

the black sea or "pontus euxin" [like the old greecs called her] is a very curious sea
the name is given by the simply fact that she has a dark colour...
is not a very clear sea....rarely the visibility is arround 6 to 10 meters and only in winter and spring time [allthought there are somme exceptions in september]...
because this sea is not clear, the diving certificates are somehow difficult to be obtained....al the exercises are easely made in clears waters...
as you know, the black sea is not an open sea....she comunicate with mediteranean sea thrue bosfor and dardanele straits, therefor there are not streams, but i must tell u that is not a calm sea.
shurelly is a salt water sea, but not so salt as the mediteranean is or adriatic....whay is that?
because a large amount of fresh water is brought by Danube river...
on the romanian seashore, the black sea have sandy beaches [did I spell corectly?]
this fish stand at 40-60 meters depth...in the spring they came into the shores for reproduction....shores means 2 to 20 meters depth.

[vali]

Originally Posted by Old Man Dave

Fantastic catch. That's definitely a turbot. How many did you have? There looks like a few. Turbot are one of our most prized fish but we can't catch them like that any more. We get a few using handspears and scuba but even then we have to dive deep and in very strong tides. Is your catch very special or is that a normal catch. If that is normal I'm gonna be visiting you soon.

Dave

i must tell u that in my entire life i did not hunt with scuba....just apneea...
catching the turbot is not an easy task, because of varoius thing:
1. black sea is a tempered-cold sea...in march-april, when i go hunting this turbot, the sea is about 6 to 10 celsius
2. black sea is not a clear water sea....as i mentioned above
3. the turbot is magnificant in mimetism
i go into the water and in 2 to 3 ours i dive over a hundred times, making the journey from the surface to the bottom...is not an easy task, but is worthy...
one more thing....freediving fins are more than necessaary

[wet]

Originally Posted by vali

the black sea or "pontus euxin" [like the old greecs called her] is a very curious sea

Yes, it spirals around seasonally, I guess because of the rivers adding water and the Bosporus subtracting water. I had thought that the glacial melting from the last Ice Ages made the sea's upper water column pure freshwater, but I guess it's more like mixed brackish water now.

the name is given by the simply fact that she has a dark colour...
is not a very clear sea....

Is that due to silt-mud in the water or due to algae?

rarely the visibility is arround 6 to 10 meters and only in winter and spring time [allthought there are somme exceptions in september]...
because this sea is not clear, the diving certificates are somehow difficult to be obtained....al the exercises are easely made in clears waters...
as you know, the black sea is not an open sea....she comunicate with mediteranean sea thrue bosfor and dardanele straits, therefor there are not streams, but i must tell u that is not a calm sea.
shurelly is a salt water sea, but not so salt as the mediteranean is or adriatic....whay is that?
because a large amount of fresh water is brought by Danube river...
on the romanian seashore, the black sea have sandy beaches [did I spell corectly?]

Yes. So there are many rough waves from the winds of the surrounding mountains, I guess, but no daily tide.

this fish stand at 40-60 meters depth...in the spring they came into the shores for reproduction....shores means 2 to 20 meters depth.

Nice catch!

DDeden

PS. I just happened to see this book about the pre-history of the Black Sea, the paleo-ecology and coastal peoples there, see the Table of contents for details about "the flood", molluscs, fish etc.
The Black Sea Flood Question: Changes in Coastline, Climate and... - Geoscie...Journals, Books & Online Media | Springer

[Fondueset]

Vali,

Thank you for telling us about your part of the world! Sounds Like a great place to dive.

[trux]

Originally Posted by wet

Yes, it spirals around seasonally, I guess because of the rivers adding water and the Bosporus subtracting water. I had thought that the glacial melting from the last Ice Ages made the sea's upper water column pure freshwater, but I guess it's more like mixed brackish water now.

There is a well grounded theory that the Black Sea was a brackish water inland lake, and was catastrophically flooded from the Mediterranean Sea through Bosporus and Dardanelles some 7000 years ago. Robert Ballard (the famous oceanographer who found Titanic) found shorelines and rest of a building some 100m below the current surface. When I heard about it around 2002, I expected it to become a sensational news filling all newspapers, and causing the rewriting of school books, but strangely only couple of specialized magazines posted a few lines or an article about it. Although the discovery in fact confirms the biblical Great Deluge, it looks like it is not something jewish, muslim, and christian religious leaders and fundamentalists wanted to hear, because to them such Deluge was not global enough

There is a quote about the research here:

In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archaeologists led by Robert Ballard identified what appeared to be ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, drowned river valleys, tool-worked timbers, and man-made structures in roughly 300 feet (100 m) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. Radiocarbon dating of freshwater mollusc remains indicated an age of about 7,000 years.

Read more about Robert Ballard's research for example here: National Geographic: Noah’s Flood/Black Sea Expedition--Flash
More on the Deluge history here: Black Sea deluge theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Back to the salinity: the surface salinity of the Black Sea is at 18.5 ppt. For comparison the average ocean surface salinity is 34.7 ppt, the Mediterranean Sea 38 ppt, Red Sea 40 ppt, and the Baltic Sea (the sea between Scandinavia and the Eurpean mainland) just 8 ppt (that's already considered brackish).

I really loved diving in the Black Sea - besides its fauna and flora different than in the Mediterranean Sea, also the salinity is very pleasant - you can dive without a mask and feel no irritation in eyes and sinus like in most other seas, and even less than in freshwater. And the visibility was not that bad at all. I've been at the Black Sea about ten times (mostly end of August to late September), and the visibility of 10m was not that exceptional.

Originally Posted by wet

Is that due to silt-mud in the water or due to algae?

Some theories tell it is the algae, others speak about high concentration of hydrogen sulfide that causes the black color. It may be a combination of both. Personally I never found the Black Sea really black - until I once dove to 20m - suddenly I was in a total darkness

Originally Posted by wet

Yes. So there are many rough waves from the winds of the surrounding mountains, I guess, but no daily tide.

No tide at all, but yes, the waves may get scary and kill the visibility fast.

[foxfish]

Vali, that is a very special catch of Turbot. Where I live Turbot are often called the "king of fish" because of thier eating qualities.

[wet]

Originally Posted by trux

There is a well grounded theory that the Black Sea was a brackish water inland lake, and was catastrophically flooded from the Mediterranean Sea through Bosporus and Dardanelles some 7000 years ago.

Yes, see my ps. in my message above. That theory doesn't seem to be well supported due to conflicting evidence.

Robert Ballard (the famous oceanographer who found Titanic) found shorelines and rest of a building some 100m below the current surface. When I heard about it around 2002, I expected it to become a sensational news filling all newspapers, and causing the rewriting of school books, but strangely only couple of specialized magazines posted a few lines or an article about it. Although the discovery in fact confirms the biblical Great Deluge, it looks like it is not something jewish, muslim, and christian religious leaders and fundamentalists wanted to hear, because to them such Deluge was not global enough

There is a quote about the research here:


Read more about Robert Ballard's research for example here: National Geographic: Noah’s Flood/Black Sea Expedition--Flash
More on the Deluge history here: Black Sea deluge theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Back to the salinity: the surface salinity of the Black Sea is at 18.5 ppt. For comparison the average ocean surface salinity is 34.7 ppt, the Mediterranean Sea 38 ppt, Red Sea 40 ppt, and the Baltic Sea (the sea between Scandinavia and the Eurpean mainland) just 8 ppt (that's already considered brackish).

How about the Caspian Sea and Dead Sea? I guess 25ppt & 45ppt.
I had thought the Black about 12ppt

I really loved diving in the Black Sea - besides its fauna and flora different than in the Mediterranean Sea, also the salinity is very pleasant - you can dive without a mask and feel no irritation in eyes and sinus like in most other seas, and even less than in freshwater. And the visibility was not that bad at all. I've been at the Black Sea about ten times (mostly end of August to late September), and the visibility of 10m was not that exceptional.

Has anyone here dived the Black Sea and Caspian Sea? Are they quite different? They were both once part of the Peri-Tethys Sea (or Para-Tethys)

Some theories tell it is the algae, others speak about high concentration of hydrogen sulfide that causes the black color. It may be a combination of both. Personally I never found the Black Sea really black - until I once dove to 20m - suddenly I was in a total darkness

No tide at all, but yes, the waves may get scary and kill the visibility fast.

Thanks Trux.

DDeden

[trux]

Originally Posted by wet

How about the Caspian Sea and Dead Sea? I guess 25ppt & 45ppt. I had thought the Black about 12ppt

The Caspian sea is much less salty than the Black Sea (but still more salty than the Baltic Sea) - surface salinity is at 12.8 ppt. The Dead Sea salinity is about 300 ppt (30%).