When the Bullet Hits the Bone

A song on my playlist reminds me of the trouble one can get into, while fishing offshore. I share these cautionary tales, hoping that readers might benefit. Back then, each episode could be written off as another day's adventure, but as the years go by I wonder why we did such things.

One of the top days for a serious lapse in judgment involved a 40-pound ling that I speared while snorkeling. And when a bullet really did hit the bone. At first that ling hardly put up a fight. Swimming the prized fish back to the boat, my friend Jackson (visiting from Dallas) gave it a tentative poke with the gaff, while I treaded water. The fish went crazy and dove straight down, dragging me with it; I was too stubborn to turn loose of the small, three-banded Magnum speargun.

Holding my breath and dragged deeper and deeper. I could see the bottom of my boat grow smaller up above — something like four inches at arm's length. Somehow I turned that fish around and dragged it back to the surface without drowning. And advised my buddy to forget the gaff. Shoot the fish before it drags me down again!

So, he loaded the single shot .22 rifle and made ready, the barrel quivering. I swam close and held the tired fish by each gill plate, getting an arm scratched by those little spikes behind its head. Jackson held the barrel close to its head and fired. The bullet passed between my hands and drilled through the ling’s head. It must have been a solid point bullet, because it didn’t shatter. Or deflect, for that matter. Just a small hole. The ling went limp and was hoisted aboard, and we were soon speeding back to Sabine Pass.

Twice I speared goliath grouper before they were protected in 1990. The first towed me for what seemed like 10 minutes under an oil rig in zero visibility, ‘round and ‘round the pipes in the bottom’s nepheloid layer, which is silty water below the clear water. It’s hard to miss pipes and oversized barnacles when you can’t see, but I fended them off by feel and came away without a scratch. The fish was bigger than me. My buddy then shot a bigger one a half hour later that towed both of us, until he ran out of air and surfaced. The water depth was only 30 feet.

The second goliath nearly drowned me. Off Key West a few miles out in the northwest channel where the shrimp boats run, there is a line of ragged jetty rocks, stretching half a mile, almost hidden at high tide. We’d swim up and down the line of rocks for hours, sniping at mangrove snapper. Depth was 10 feet or so. In a small cave entrance I spotted big white lips, a goliath grouper of a hundred pounds or so. My little spear stuck near his head, and he spun around and disappeared back in his cave. I climbed the nearest dry rock and called the guys over. They anchored the boat a few feet away. I then took a dozen deep breaths and, knife in hand, swam down into the cave to finish the job.

Once inside, a corridor led off 12 feet to the left, with sand bottom, light filtering down from the jumbled rocks above. I swam down the corridor, tracing the speargun’s line that disappeared around a sharp corner, where waited the grouper. I peered around the corner and we eyed each other. I tugged on the line. That’s when Mr. Grouper decided to leave his lair. He banged into my chest, squeezed past me like a big sausage and swam to the entrance – where he regarded my buddies treading water overhead with their spearguns. Changing his mind, the fish spun around and again rammed me in the chest. Once again, I grabbed and squeezed him past me; in the corridor there was hardly room for both of us. My head thumped into rocks and I was seeing stars from lack of air. Barely reaching the cave entrance, I stuck my arm out and an alert buddy grabbed my hand and yanked me to the surface. There’s nothing like a breath of fresh air.

I’d only been down a minute or so, but wrestling with that fish in a cave on one breath of air wasn’t as much fun as it sounds. Feeling like I’d been in a bad car wreck, we headed straight back to Key West and downtown, where strong drink settled my nerves. Next day we returned (gluttons for punishment) and my steel spear was still there, bent into a U with no sign of the grouper. Not that I minded.

In the following years at the oil rigs off Texas/Louisiana I took that lesson to heart and left the big fish alone, concentrating on photography, rare shells and a couple of small fish for supper. Other Gulf divers have speared more than they could handle and sometimes been dragged too deep or got tangled up, with fatal results.

One can get into all sorts of trouble, jumping off the boat. Another close call involved a 6-foot shark inches from my elbow, because I had a small, croaking grouper tucked under my arm like a football as I headed for the surface. Sensing a presence, I only had time to look and barely flinch before the shark pulled a 180-degree turn, its tail missing my face by inches. With one flick of his tail, he shot away like a missile. It seems that predator fish can hear that croaking distress call from a distance. If you’re surf fishing, don’t hold that croaking trout against your side.

And then there were the three-day tournaments offshore. Back in the ‘80s, weather forecasting wasn’t so great and they certainly couldn’t predict brief but bad thunderstorms with lightning. We’d just sit offshore for three days and two nights, looking for big kingfish and ling. By today’s standards our boats were small, with single engines.

During our most memorable trip in a 21-foot boat, we had some water in the gas and had to remove and clean the spark plugs while offshore. Without spare plugs, of course. Out that far, we had no contact with anyone on the radio. On the last morning we awoke groggy for some reason, with the boat lurching on its rope. A northeast wind was throwing whitecaps; always a bad sign in August. We didn’t wet a line, just untied and headed in. Eight hours later we pulled into Galveston and the waiting winner’s circle. Followed three days later by Hurricane Alicia that hammered Galveston. There was lots of wreckage up in Clear Lake near NASA; even the Turtle Club was half-sunk with beer kegs bobbing.

After several successful overnight tuna trips in a 26-foot boat out to Cerveza Rig in 900 feet of water, we were finally caught in a bad May storm (late cold front). We’d caught a few blackfin tuna after dark, but there was an odd haze to the north; we couldn’t see lightning, only a strobe effect behind clouds. It hit suddenly at 10 p.m. and tried to blow our boat inside the platform, but we were quick and alert, driving around to the downwind side. What followed was a long and hellish night with pounding rain and constant lightning flashes even inside the wet sleeping bag under our canvas bow dodger. The waves were huge and I eventually gulped six Dramamine tablets. (Bonine is stronger, but can make you too sleepy.) Twice, the rig hook clanged off the oil rig and sank, and we drifted away while I pulled the hook back up. Lots of fun, re-hooking to that rig at 2 a.m. in 12-foot seas. And without a bow rail; one slip and you went howling overboard. Fortunately, the rig was well-lit and our timing was perfect.

We weren’t about to leave that platform and head north in a black, heaving ocean, so we clung to that rig like a tick. At dawn the seas were easily 12 feet; we were actually looking up at them. Somehow the wind had mercifully shifted to the south, and so we surfed the boat back to Freeport. At one point we slid down a wave, the steering wheel spun, and we hit the trough almost sideways. My hip bone and head thumped off the gunnel at the same time and we lay in a heap on deck. Somebody grab the wheel! As we got further inshore, the seas became more manageable, a modest five feet or so. Back home my wife hadn’t slept all night and called the Coast Guard that morning, but we returned to Freeport before noon.

That was, however, our last overnighter in the Gulf. And I haven't been diving out there in years. Sooner or later your luck can run out.