Matt

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Story:

"I went out to the islands with my family and a friend's family on his 55' Fleming yacht last weekend.  Sunday after catching great 2x overhead surf in the morning, my friend Rich and I took the kids onshore to Santa Rosa Island and we explored a creek that had tons of frogs and tadpoles.  My wife Julanne decided to stay on the boat and go diving in a nearby kelp bed. When we got back to the boat Jules was sitting there with a 54 pound seabass!  It is her biggest ever.  It should be a new woman's world record, but we knew we were going to get home too late to deal with getting it weighed on a certified scale so we just filleted her fish.  I think she still has the old record at 52 pounds.

Then my 4 year-old Trevor said he wanted to dive but he'd never put a mask on before. Trev kept talking about trying to shoot a tiger shark!  We dressed him up in a tiny wetsuit and I jumped in with my gun with Trevor on my back.  It is quite impossible to dive with any degree of effectiveness with the weight of a child on your back and a constant choke hold around your neck. 

I was pretty much drowning the entire time and I took in water through my semi-submerged snorkel on nearly every other breath.  Trev kept spitting his snorkel out to breath and I had to put it back in his mouth and train him about 20 times.  After getting used to the water Trevor started having a great time and kept his face in the water the whole time. He wouldn't shut up though and kept oohhing and ahhhing through his snorkel at all the little perch and kelp crabs.  I saw a couple seabass swimming 15-20 feet down on separate occasions but I couldn't dive because Trev was too scared to be alone on the surface so I just let them pass.  They were booking anyway because Trev just kept screaming through his snorkel every time he saw any type of fish or crab.

Finally I saw a nice barred-up female seabass near the surface sleeping under some kelp.  I crept up slowly and Trev started screaming "Tiger shark seabass" through his snorkel.  As the fish stirred I shot it in the head but didn't stone it.  I wasn't able to dive under kelp and follow it with Trev on my back so I decided to "short line" it and just wrapped the shooting line around my bare hand (Jules was using my gloves) and kicked like crazy. The fish pulled me under a couple feet which was enough for Trev to panic and try to scramble on top of my head.  So now I had a big seabass pulling me down and Trev on top of me grabbing my snorkel and mask and pushing me down trying to stand on my shoulders. 

Still underwater I cleared my mask with my last bit of air and "steered" the fish towards the nearest kelp stalk to try and get it to wrap up.  Finally the fish wrapped up in the kelp 30 feet down.  I tried to get Trev to float on the surface while I dove to get the fish but he would have nothing to do with me leaving him alone and wouldn't let go of my neck.  We were quite a ways from the boat and after much yelling and screaming the captain brought the inflatable over to take Trev while I went down to get the fish.  It was 43 pounds and Trev still won't stop talking about it!"