Danger Small Boat 90 Miles Out at Sea {The Waterman Games Pt 4}

The time had finally come to hunt for the evasive yellowfin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico in Florida waters. I set our coordinates to the FADS, deep offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Farther than where most would venture to go.

The night before we were about to head to Pensacola, we find out there are another two hurricanes coming our way.

Taking my small boat 200 miles out to the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, jumping in the water, and diving down as deep as I possibly can to shoot a yellowfin tuna with my speargun while Christine is driving the boat…. People have died doing far less, and there are Great White Sharks out there that get up to 5000 pounds. And you never would see it coming.

We rented a little house in Pensacola Florida that wasn’t far from the marina where we were keeping the boat in the Gulf.

The Florida marina in was surprisingly empty. The dockmaster told us they were almost finished with repairs from a hurricane that hit Florida a year prior. We should be good since lightning rarely strikes in the same place twice.

A hurricane can hit any part of Florida and has in the past. No place is really safe from one of nature’s most powerful and destructive forces.

Our weather window had arrived; and it was time to start finishing up the final preparations for our voyage to fish for Yellowfin Tuna in the Gulf of Mexico

We headed out real early, and the weather couldn’t have been any nicer on the water. This was gonna be a piece of cake.

We were now truly deep in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the Florida northern gulf. Not an ideal situation if anything were to actually happen to us or the boat.

Not to mention what would happen if a storm developed while we waited for help. As a last resort, we’d have to call in the coast guard, and they’d have to fly in a helicopter to rescue us.

We were putting a lot of faith in hunting for tuna these floating Fads, installed in the Gulf

We find a school of Mahi, and my girlfriend and I start shooting what turned out to be the best Mahi fishing experience of our lives.

Both of us shot a few nice Mahi by freedive spearfishing for the game, and once the biggest ones were caught for the tournament, I got in the boat and picked up my fishing rod, and got to work slinging them in the boat.

We ended up limiting out on Mahi. That’s 20 total Mahi, and that meant we had dinner for the next few weeks while we hunt for our yellowfin tuna… which wasn’t going to come easy.

My new Alemanni spearguns finally arrive. Ever since I got into spearfishing, I’ve heard about this brand of gun, but no one I know has ever had one because they’re so expensive and difficult to acquire.

Unfortunately, that was the calm before the storm, and the winds picked up preventing us from making it back out there for the next couple of days.

We had taken that weather window for granted. This was summertime in the Gulf: hurricane season…. And things change quickly.

We finally have our wish, and the winds in the Gulf of Mexico calm down enough for us to get back out there. Unfortunately, not as calm as the first day we went out, but calm enough for us to go out fishing.

It would take us 2 and a half to 3 hours to make it where we wanted to fish. With an equally long ride back, that only leaves us a couple of hours of daylight to hunt. If the winds and waves were too rough, we could be driving all day and have no time to hunt. Not to mention being beaten to hell on a small boat in big waves for 8 to 10 hours in a row.

We spent the better part of a day drifting over areas where I was hoping to find yellowfin tuna.

A storm started developing off in the distance and was moving in.

Storms out here in the gulf can come out of nowhere and go from flat calm seas to hanging on for dear life so we kept an eye on it.

At this point in time, Christine was the captain and I was the only one in the water, waiting for something to happen.

All of a sudden, after days of drifting around looking for yellowfin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico, I see what looks like faint little yellow triangles that are the telltale signs of a yellowfin tuna. And before my eyes, an entire school appeared.

I held my breath and down freediving and started to take aim with my Alemanni speargun, but it seemed like every inch I made towards them was 2 inches they moved away.

I lined up with my new speargun and fired at the Yellowfin Tuna in the Gulf of Mexico Florida Waters

There are 5 films so far in The Waterman Games Series
Pt. 1: https://youtu.be/FE__XB6zK14
Pt. 2: https://youtu.be/dGfrR05eKJw
Pt. 3: https://youtu.be/wtYEwKrBaSo
Pt. 4: https://youtu.be/f8zdshZAx9M (You are here!)
Pt. 5: https://youtu.be/rtwVqM2OVt8
Pt.. 6: https://youtu.be/ZfUEqvdyXaA

Tropical Storm Boating Adventure Gulf of Mexico Florida Hurricanes Spearfishing Yellowfin Tuna in Florida Waters