Severe Barracuda Attack

[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.