blobbottlebob
Well-Known Member
My dive buddy agrees to search a half a tank (and then we could go bottle dive for one and a half more). The two fisherman pick us up at a dock and come to a consensus as to where the rod met it's watery resting place. We begin our search. Right away, there is a problem. In the intervening time since my last effort, there has been an algae bloom. A little hard to describe, but it is like floating cottony green clouds that are big and obnoxious. If you swim into one, you see nothing. If you try to brush it away, your hand just goes right through it. It is soft squishy with no substance. I tried to pull a big glob out of the water at the surface and a thin layer of slippery slime covered my fingers. Uh oh.
We continued to search anyway. The two fisherman realized that nothing was happening fast, so they went off to fish. They said they'd be close enough to see us so that we could signal them if we needed to. Tom and I searched and searched. Conditions were not ideal but I was convinced that if anyone could find it, we would. Unfortunately, we weren't. Eventually, we were forced to realize that if we couldn't get it in all that time, it may be unrecoverable. We were getting ready to give it up in a few minutes so that we could still search for bottles. Then at the bottom, I saw a tiny bit of a purple-ish color. Not what I had been seeing. I checked to find out if it was a wrapper or garbage or what. As I grabbed it, I saw the rubbery stringy hair-like substance that lures have (especially spin baits). And, the lure is attached to a line which is attached to a pole. A LaCroix pole! I found it. I went over and told my buddy to stop looking, I had it. Then I waved it around in the air above the water to signal them.
The rod was completely buried in a very fine sediment making it virtually invisible. Amazingly, it had tiny zebra mussels on it already and it wasn't down there more than a few weeks. The owner tried a cast and it worked perfectly like it had never been submerged.
We climbed aboard and he took us off to the spot where we wanted to bottle dive. We each found some old glass including hutches, but nothing major came out besides the pole. We switched tanks and clipped the extras on our floats. When we finished, we swam back to the dock where we started across a big bay.
We continued to search anyway. The two fisherman realized that nothing was happening fast, so they went off to fish. They said they'd be close enough to see us so that we could signal them if we needed to. Tom and I searched and searched. Conditions were not ideal but I was convinced that if anyone could find it, we would. Unfortunately, we weren't. Eventually, we were forced to realize that if we couldn't get it in all that time, it may be unrecoverable. We were getting ready to give it up in a few minutes so that we could still search for bottles. Then at the bottom, I saw a tiny bit of a purple-ish color. Not what I had been seeing. I checked to find out if it was a wrapper or garbage or what. As I grabbed it, I saw the rubbery stringy hair-like substance that lures have (especially spin baits). And, the lure is attached to a line which is attached to a pole. A LaCroix pole! I found it. I went over and told my buddy to stop looking, I had it. Then I waved it around in the air above the water to signal them.
The rod was completely buried in a very fine sediment making it virtually invisible. Amazingly, it had tiny zebra mussels on it already and it wasn't down there more than a few weeks. The owner tried a cast and it worked perfectly like it had never been submerged.
We climbed aboard and he took us off to the spot where we wanted to bottle dive. We each found some old glass including hutches, but nothing major came out besides the pole. We switched tanks and clipped the extras on our floats. When we finished, we swam back to the dock where we started across a big bay.
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