I was out diving in a relatively new spot last week here on guam since the last time i checked it out i saw a whole bunch of big barracuda and giant trevally..... I got in the water in mid afternoon and swam out to a drop off (60ft to 140 ft, almost a sheer drop) The first fish i saw was a GT which must have been a little upwards of 30lbs (i shot his brother a couple days before pics on the way) but i tensed up a little too much when he startled me.... in the way only uluas do. Total bummer. A few dives later after i calmed down a bit and got more acclimated .....i saw what i came there for.....a big FRIGGIN barracuda. With my last failure fresh in my mind i stayed motionless except for turning my gun slowly so that my flopper wiggled a little bit...just enough to get his attention. He was zoned out and crept slowly in, i waited for him to turn broadside since i was using my trusty 120 RA with my lovely reel (which the dogtooth didnt quite tear away from me 2 weeks before) i took a shot mid body since the barracuda head is so damn thick and that gun lacks the punch to peirce the skull. He flipped out and my line went screaming off for a short run (25 yds or so) and the fight was pretty steady after that.....i told my dive partner to reel up my line as i slowly hand over hand dragged him up from the dropoff. I got the fish up close to me and (having never shot a barracuda before, but knowing they had gnarly teeth i did this kind of "fin between body barrier thing" to keep him from biting the crap out of me) then i straddled the body of the fish and slid my hands up from mid body on to the snout of the fish....holding his mouth shut. I tore out his gills which sent clouds of blood all around me (here sharky sharky)....i hung the fish on my float (which my dive partner was using) since i cant dive with such a bulky fish hanging off of my stringer......after a few more hours of diving (we saw a couple of sharks ...a small black tipped reef shark and a decent size grey)...no big deal...... I got to my fish to swim him back to shore and noticed he looked like crap.... then i noticed there were big chunks missing out of the body....wth.... i told my partner to stick close and to swim quickly back to shore with me....we encountered a few more sharks...and a few more.....then three BIG shadows appeared circling me (as usual my dive partner was oblivious) i noticed the bodies were super sleek and the fins were longer than usual ...three oceanic whitetips roughly 7-10 feet long between the three of them...i got out of that water so fast...it cant be described with words.....
the question i would like to pose is.....how the heck to i kill a fish like that barracuda without putting all the blood in the water (without a boat...naturally?)
any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Pics are coming soon!
the question i would like to pose is.....how the heck to i kill a fish like that barracuda without putting all the blood in the water (without a boat...naturally?)
any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Pics are coming soon!
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