Jetty Report
This is a report for the Port Aransas North and South Jetties.
Copeland's offers jetty diving as a specialty course. Ask us about it.
All photos below were taken at the jetties. Select an image to enlarge it.
Copeland's offers jetty diving as a specialty course. Ask us about it.
All photos below were taken at the jetties. Select an image to enlarge it.
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September 11, 2011:
My objective when diving the jetties is always spearfishing/photo. Meaning I go to spearfish, but my camera is always on me for when that photo opportunity presents itself. If I forget the camera, it's a guarantee that I will see something amazing (see story below).
This day in particular was excellent. The sun was shining, the visibility in the channel was about 10'-12' (outstanding for the jetties), water temp was 82 degrees, it was a falling tide and the water was quite calm. I found a new outcropping of rocks, but its location will be my little secret. From this new found location, myself and a friend ended up shooting 10 Sheepshead, 4 Grouper and a Spadefish. I shot a nice Black Drum, but a band on my gun broke so my gun was lacking the power to penetrate deep enough to bury the barb, thus, this one got away. We saw plenty of Atlantic Spadefish, Sheepshead, small groupers, Gray Snapper, several juvenile Red Snapper in the 10" range, Juvenile Lane Snapper up to about 4", Spanish Mackerel, Sea Turtles, hundreds of Pony Mullet, a few Jack Crevalle, a very large Atlantic Stingray, and a couple of Red Drum (one of which was about 40"). There was a great diversity of fish, most capitalizing on the annual run of mullet to the Gulf i'm sure.
I am often asked if I have ever seen a shark when diving the jetties and my answer has always been no......until this trip.
I'm at a depth of about 45', my buddy is about 10' behind me looking for his next fish, and I'm lining up a shot on yet another Sheepshead. I swing an arc to get my shot lined up, squeeze the trigger, and home run - another one for the fryer. Then something BIG catches my eye. It's a large shark and he's about 6' away. He's about 6'-7' long, which isn't a truly huge shark, but given my circumstances, he was WAY bigger than I was comfortable with at the time. This is compounded by the fact that he is turning away from me as I see him, preventing me from identifying the species. Half a second later he dissapears into the murk.
So now I'm all consumed with thoughts of a Bull Shark taking my catch, along with an arm or leg. I get my dive buddies attention and give him the universal (so I thought) signal for "shark" as I point in the direction I last saw it. My dive buddy gives me a very dismissive wave of the hand and goes on about his business. He apparently doesn't understand, so here I am underwater trying to charade "shark" without being able to use the standard gesture. Try that one out some time. Anyway, I signal for us to surface, and we start making our way back toward the jetty, all the while I can't stop looking over my shoulder.
We make it to the surface with all of our limbs intact, and my dive buddy is none the wiser. I explain the ordeal to him, and he reiterates that he had no idea what the "shark" signal meant. This, of course, was my own fault for assuming he knew it before the language barrier was removed from the equation. Prior to the dive, we had reviewed the basic hand signals, but failed to get into detail about other signals I thought were fairly universal. It just goes to show you never know, so being thorough is never a bad thing.
Overall, the dive was great and one that will stick in my mind for a good while. Hope to see you out there soon.
By: Sean Allison
My objective when diving the jetties is always spearfishing/photo. Meaning I go to spearfish, but my camera is always on me for when that photo opportunity presents itself. If I forget the camera, it's a guarantee that I will see something amazing (see story below).
This day in particular was excellent. The sun was shining, the visibility in the channel was about 10'-12' (outstanding for the jetties), water temp was 82 degrees, it was a falling tide and the water was quite calm. I found a new outcropping of rocks, but its location will be my little secret. From this new found location, myself and a friend ended up shooting 10 Sheepshead, 4 Grouper and a Spadefish. I shot a nice Black Drum, but a band on my gun broke so my gun was lacking the power to penetrate deep enough to bury the barb, thus, this one got away. We saw plenty of Atlantic Spadefish, Sheepshead, small groupers, Gray Snapper, several juvenile Red Snapper in the 10" range, Juvenile Lane Snapper up to about 4", Spanish Mackerel, Sea Turtles, hundreds of Pony Mullet, a few Jack Crevalle, a very large Atlantic Stingray, and a couple of Red Drum (one of which was about 40"). There was a great diversity of fish, most capitalizing on the annual run of mullet to the Gulf i'm sure.
I am often asked if I have ever seen a shark when diving the jetties and my answer has always been no......until this trip.
I'm at a depth of about 45', my buddy is about 10' behind me looking for his next fish, and I'm lining up a shot on yet another Sheepshead. I swing an arc to get my shot lined up, squeeze the trigger, and home run - another one for the fryer. Then something BIG catches my eye. It's a large shark and he's about 6' away. He's about 6'-7' long, which isn't a truly huge shark, but given my circumstances, he was WAY bigger than I was comfortable with at the time. This is compounded by the fact that he is turning away from me as I see him, preventing me from identifying the species. Half a second later he dissapears into the murk.
So now I'm all consumed with thoughts of a Bull Shark taking my catch, along with an arm or leg. I get my dive buddies attention and give him the universal (so I thought) signal for "shark" as I point in the direction I last saw it. My dive buddy gives me a very dismissive wave of the hand and goes on about his business. He apparently doesn't understand, so here I am underwater trying to charade "shark" without being able to use the standard gesture. Try that one out some time. Anyway, I signal for us to surface, and we start making our way back toward the jetty, all the while I can't stop looking over my shoulder.
We make it to the surface with all of our limbs intact, and my dive buddy is none the wiser. I explain the ordeal to him, and he reiterates that he had no idea what the "shark" signal meant. This, of course, was my own fault for assuming he knew it before the language barrier was removed from the equation. Prior to the dive, we had reviewed the basic hand signals, but failed to get into detail about other signals I thought were fairly universal. It just goes to show you never know, so being thorough is never a bad thing.
Overall, the dive was great and one that will stick in my mind for a good while. Hope to see you out there soon.
By: Sean Allison
September 5, 2011:
This was a dive off of the south jetty. Due to a north wind, the beach side of the jetty (south side) was unusually clear with about 15' visibility. We normally have a predominant south wind at this time of year, thus the south side of the south jetty is almost constantly too dirty to dive, but today was an exception to the rule. The channel was very dirty and the tide flowing outbound with ferocity, so the decision was made to walk to the end of the jetty and dive the beach side (something I have never had the chance to do before today). Slipping into the water, I see mullet everywhere, bringing a smile to my face. We make our descent and settle into an area of rocks with good fish activity.
Right off the bat, 3 large horse mullet come full speed in my direction, make a minor course correction to avoid me, and keep going with everything they've got. "That's odd", I think to myself. A second or two later I realize why. A huge school of large Jack Crevalle pounces onto the scene in obvious pursuit of the mullet, but immediately abandon the chase when they get to me. Without even breaking stride or formation, the 3 to 4 dozen jacks envelope me and begin to school in a tight circle around me. I think to myself, "Wow! This is amazing". I set my spear gun down at my knees and reach for my camera. It is one of those "you had to be there" situations where just telling the story later wouldn't do. I just HAD to get this on video. As my hand reaches the D-ring where my camera usually dwells, I realize it isn't there. It only now occurs to me that as we left the vehicles, I set it back down in my trunk thinking, "I'm just here to spearfish today and I don't want to carry extra gear I probably wont use". I give myself a slow motion slap underwater. Go figure. I sit and admire the massive fish who continue to circle me for a few minutes, and I think of how I will relay this story to people later, never being able to give the awe factor of actually seeing them in action. I give myself another slap for good measure. Eventually, the jacks decide to move on, leaving me with only the images in my mind.
As I survey the area for dinner prospects, I see the usual inhabitants such as Seaweed Blennies and Spotfin Butterflyfish everywhere, as well as several wrass's to about 10" (I don't see them very often). A few Spanish Mackerel zip by overhead and a small tarpon even makes an appearance. There are Sheepshead scattered about, as well as Gray Triggerfish, Atlantic Spadefish, Gray Snapper and a couple of small grouper. Time to get down to business.
We start relieving fish of their lives and before we know it, our air is running low. By this point, we have secured 5 Gray Snapper, 7 Spadefish, a Gray Triggerfish, 2 Sheepshead and a fat Southern Flounder, so we begin the trek back toward the vehicles. I should be happy as a 5 year old on Christmas day at this point, but I am still reeling over the missed video opportunity. Don't get me wrong, I was very greatful for the bounty the jetty had offered up, but I insisted on kicking myself over the fact that I missed a great photo/video opportunity because of a rash, underthought decision. Not a single dive after this one has or will be dove without that camera. I'm still not quite over it, but at least I learned a valuable lesson.
Overall, it was a great day of diving. I got to dive an area that is rarely diveable, and got plenty of fish as an added bonus. If the conditions come together just right again, you will find me diving that same area, but with camera in hand of course.
By: Sean Allison
This was a dive off of the south jetty. Due to a north wind, the beach side of the jetty (south side) was unusually clear with about 15' visibility. We normally have a predominant south wind at this time of year, thus the south side of the south jetty is almost constantly too dirty to dive, but today was an exception to the rule. The channel was very dirty and the tide flowing outbound with ferocity, so the decision was made to walk to the end of the jetty and dive the beach side (something I have never had the chance to do before today). Slipping into the water, I see mullet everywhere, bringing a smile to my face. We make our descent and settle into an area of rocks with good fish activity.
Right off the bat, 3 large horse mullet come full speed in my direction, make a minor course correction to avoid me, and keep going with everything they've got. "That's odd", I think to myself. A second or two later I realize why. A huge school of large Jack Crevalle pounces onto the scene in obvious pursuit of the mullet, but immediately abandon the chase when they get to me. Without even breaking stride or formation, the 3 to 4 dozen jacks envelope me and begin to school in a tight circle around me. I think to myself, "Wow! This is amazing". I set my spear gun down at my knees and reach for my camera. It is one of those "you had to be there" situations where just telling the story later wouldn't do. I just HAD to get this on video. As my hand reaches the D-ring where my camera usually dwells, I realize it isn't there. It only now occurs to me that as we left the vehicles, I set it back down in my trunk thinking, "I'm just here to spearfish today and I don't want to carry extra gear I probably wont use". I give myself a slow motion slap underwater. Go figure. I sit and admire the massive fish who continue to circle me for a few minutes, and I think of how I will relay this story to people later, never being able to give the awe factor of actually seeing them in action. I give myself another slap for good measure. Eventually, the jacks decide to move on, leaving me with only the images in my mind.
As I survey the area for dinner prospects, I see the usual inhabitants such as Seaweed Blennies and Spotfin Butterflyfish everywhere, as well as several wrass's to about 10" (I don't see them very often). A few Spanish Mackerel zip by overhead and a small tarpon even makes an appearance. There are Sheepshead scattered about, as well as Gray Triggerfish, Atlantic Spadefish, Gray Snapper and a couple of small grouper. Time to get down to business.
We start relieving fish of their lives and before we know it, our air is running low. By this point, we have secured 5 Gray Snapper, 7 Spadefish, a Gray Triggerfish, 2 Sheepshead and a fat Southern Flounder, so we begin the trek back toward the vehicles. I should be happy as a 5 year old on Christmas day at this point, but I am still reeling over the missed video opportunity. Don't get me wrong, I was very greatful for the bounty the jetty had offered up, but I insisted on kicking myself over the fact that I missed a great photo/video opportunity because of a rash, underthought decision. Not a single dive after this one has or will be dove without that camera. I'm still not quite over it, but at least I learned a valuable lesson.
Overall, it was a great day of diving. I got to dive an area that is rarely diveable, and got plenty of fish as an added bonus. If the conditions come together just right again, you will find me diving that same area, but with camera in hand of course.
By: Sean Allison
