Severe Barracuda Attack

[The Kite House]

"I think some has been telling fish tales with the barracuda attack story. I dont know who this Paul Menta is but this story has obviously been taken from an event that happened to me and some of my co-workers.

I would have to be the Jack in the story. I am the only Jack that worked for the Fisher group during that time, I lived and kept my car on Stock Island, we dock our boats on Stock Island. "


I am Paul Menta and jack, big blonde haired guy, looked like tarzan , like on his houseboat next to the mel boat there on stock island. He then girlfriend Mia, who i saw yesterday was living there with him. I have lived in key west for 16 years and so has my best friend jesse who boat we were on,plus....lol i have the scars to prove it. Any way jack moved to cali and became a ablone diver as well as a p/t if you know him, i do not like listing peoples last names. We spent alot of time spear fishing while he was here in key west, he was a nut.

Anyway, i am still in key west and still spearing all the time, so if you are curious of who i am and live here, i am easy to find at the grand cafe on duval or kiteboarding at smathers....hope that clears some stuff up for ya.

[conchxpress]

I just caught a big barracuda off Key West last week. He was wearing a Kitehouse T-shirt for a trophy! Did a number of jumps.- a KGB and an F16, I think. Had to use one of those long handle de-hookers. I wasn't getting close to that mouth. The teeth look like a bad dental job from pictures, but up close they are razor sharp. I was on a dive trip out of Miami a few years back out to the Caysal(?) Banks. We had all finished diving for the day and were anchored on a sand flat in about 20 feet of crystal clear water. There was a solitary coral head about 20 yards from the boat and I decided to grab my sling and free dive the head and look for something for dinner. There was one very large yellow tail hanging around and didn't seem to be bothered by my presence. Before taking the shot I did a 360 to see if there were any toothy types around. The vis was greater than 100 feet. I nailed the snapper behind the gill and went over to retrieve my catch. I had no sooner picked up the spear, fortunately not close to the fish, than WHAM - a cuda appeared from out of nowhere and bit my future dinner clean in half. I removed the rest of the fish utilizing the coral head and swam back to the boat empty handed.

[ricki]

I had heard about those, new Kitehouse fish tee keepsakes, great marketing idea! Give 'em to the Grunts you know on your reef. Stories like that make you wonder why diver cuda attacks aren't more common? I used to play with them as a kid in the shallows off the beach. I would throw shells out of the water to where they would land over the cuda and do a falling leaf almost hitting them. The cuda would flash out and attack the shells fairly reliably. Cheap thrills for kids. Still, they do have a hair trigger when it comes to attacking yellowtail, mutton and apparently shells too.

[conchxpress]

I was doing one of my first Keys dives off of Pennecamp a number of years ago and upon entering the water, I found myself in a school of cudas. There must have been a hundred of them. Small ones at the top of the water column and bigger as you went down. I thought they were more of a solitary hunter. Near the bottom, cruising between the coral heads were a couple of seven footers. Of course I wasn't alarmed because the dive master told us that barracudas won't hurt you.!! As I descended, the whole school would orient themselves in my direction. Spooky having all those teeth staring at you. After that, tho, I swapped out my shiny stainless dive watch for a black one.

I was watching a fishing show a couple of nights ago, and Mark Sosin was fishing for sharks in Key West. As I watched, I figured out that they were fishing in the channels off the northwest flats. They would throw the bait onto the flats and retrieve them so they would pop into the channel. They landed a couple of good sized lemon sharks. 6 feet +. I've read on the fishing forums of fisherman catching bull sharks out there, also. Whenever I've done the flats, I've always tried to attempt any new things on the flats themselves, so I wouldn't crash in the channels and have to become a troll bait trying to retrieve my board. Haven't heard of any close encounters on Smathers though. There have been attacks closer to White Street and Higgs beach by bathers trying to feed the nice birdies diving into the water.

[ricki]

Gotten used to cudas they are so common and usually fairly harmless. Then again, I don't spearfish! I can recall some January and February dives during cold fronts. The cuda's were nuts and super agro too. Whipping all over the place doing their rattle snake strung out on angel dust impersonations. Tell you what though, during a dive recently on the Duane, was treated to some unusually aggressive cuda behavior. I was free diving, deep at times too down to 120 ft.. You can't afford to have a lot mess with your head during a serious breathhold. Still, some of the touchy aspect was caught on video, still more on the editing room floor.

http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=8833

You know all the conventional wisdom about avoiding negative shark encounters diving, avoid fish schools being worked, wearing shiny stuff, having blood in the water, oh, and making sure Paul isn't too close by! Not at least unless he is sporting some of those fish tees to hand out.

[ricki]

38,000 hits +?! Lots of interest in barracudas out there.

[ARCSrule]

We ate at the grand cafe in january. that may not be the name of it now, but I recognized the pics. it had a very good buffet--not something spectacular like paul would do, so I guess he's not there now. I also 'ate' at the square taco place after reading you post with pics of it. I particularly did not like the marguerita---made with wine! who does that! haha