Negro Bar crawdad dive 9/3

Arrived at the boat ramp around 9:45am to find it closed for repairs..grrrrr....
Drove down to the picnic area and found a nice parking spot for the trailer with easy access to the water.
Carried the kayaks down to the water, then we suited up and hauled the dive stuff down to the water.
I thought I would use my 3mm suit..glad I brought the 7mm. The water was pretty cold. We were out of there by 2pm. Good thing 'cuz the place was getting packed with people enjoying the holiday.

Took the wife, 19 yo son Eric, and two of his friends. One of his friends is AOW certified, so we were able to do a tank dive. I haven't been on a dive this year, it felt great to be under the water again. We did a 70 min dive and picked up a bunch of crawdads. Didn't go any deeper than 18 or 19'.

Took our catch home. Cooked them up in some Cajun spices. Also had some abalone, Trader Joe's shrimp and scallop skewers, a loaf of garlic bread and a salad. Yummmmm....life is good.

Here's a few pics.

Water was nice in the am. Got busy with more kayaks as the day went on.


One of many.


Getting a fresh rinse at home.


Eric cooked all the 'dads.




We ended up with two big bowls of cooked 'dads. Turned out to be a nice dinner.

Super cool and sumthin different!

That makes me homesick for crawdad boils.  We do them a bit bigger though since it is Texas 

 

I heart me some dead bugs.I should have went diving because shootin was no good.
 Sunny

Sweet!!
Chryss has been bugging me for a big ol 'dad boil...  We are going to drop some traps on the A this week and hope for enough keepers...

two weeks ago we put out a trap overnight and got 39 by morning, but only about 10 were eating size...barely...

Wow! What a feast!     You sure know how to enjoy life!

Janice aka "Big J"

Themz is some bigguns Al!  pert'near as big them ones in the ocean!  Thx fer'dat port&pics and gettin me wantin som vitels!

Very cool! Would love to that - now that I finally got my wet suit!!!

A good time to dive  in the American is after the salmon start to die.find A dead one,dive down and reap the rewards.

I use to snorkel for them when I was a kid...  Brings back memories.

Way cool A, that water looked super clear when I was there.
And you got to love seeing Sierra Nevada beer in Texas.

Way cool A, that water looked super clear when I was there.

Ben....you're right, the water was pretty clear. The picnic area wasn't bad, but it's usually a lot cleaner closer to the bridges and up the canyon. We worked our way up the current so the silt would stay behind us. I wished we could have launched at the ramp to get closer to the cleaner water.

You sure know how to enjoy life!

Thanks Janice...like everyone else on the board, we make the best of it when we can and enjoy sharing.

I forgot to mention the best part....sharing the time with the three young men. It's fun to take the young people out and do something they have never done before. My son has done this stuff, but the other two haven't. Eric and one of the guys had a fun time free diving and kayaking. They didn't get many crawdads, but had a blast doing it. The other shared a nice, easy dive with me. Then they all helped with the cooking and eating.

Bill: Looks like I forgot to use the newspaper table cloth! 

Best regards, Al


 

Mmmmmmmmmmmm! Mini lobster! Please pass the butter.

Bill: Looks like I forgot to use the newspaper table cloth! 

Best regards, Al

It was a formal