I have wanted a doggie for a long time but it seems like where I live there is always a problem: No Doggies.

But I knew what I wanted. I wanted a doggie that was beautiful, sleek looking, fast as a rocket, with big teeth, a free spirit, doesn’t bark, powerful and yet approachable. I also wanted as big a doggie as I could find—but I would settle for any doggie. Well it took a lot of time, a lot of searching, and I had to travel a long way but I finally found just the doggie I wanted. Though I had hoped for a bigger one, this doggie was great. He was magnificent, powerful, sleek, with big teeth and approachable——But there was one problem——He didn’t come when I called——So I had to shoot him, kill him, and eat him!

He was delicious. The doggie I am referring to of course, is my first dog tooth tuna. Vince Natali and I traveled to the Cook Islands for a couple of weeks of freediving in the warm, purple water in search of our first doggies. It was a nice change from our normal California-Baja type of diving with the thicker suits, more weights, murkier water and no doggies at all.

The water temp in the Cooks was about 75 to 77 degrees with the normal vis of over one hundred feet. We dove the FADS, but mostly the drop off on the outside of the reef. The reef gradually slopes out to 70 or 80 feet deep and then falls precipitously into the nothingness. The doggies seem to cruise the drop off, ever ready to drift over the edge and disappear into the void. It continued to surprise me that when I would see the quarry near the bottom, I would kick down and fall through space for ten or fifteen seconds toward the clearly visible bottom and it would never seem to get any closer. The clear water was very deceptive in judging depth. I would sometimes kick down till I was out of air and the fish would still be cruising around twenty or thirty feet below me. The dark backs of the doggies were hard to see against the variegated bottom and they looked like the size of mackerel from the surface. There were not many times when we found the fish, could get down within range and line up a shot, but it was a great feeling when we did close, to watch the fish take shape and grow in size. We got in a couple of schools of forty or fifty fish, some over 100 lbs, but the big boys never allowed us to approach within range. Vince was shooting great. I watched him line up on some doggies and barracuda which I thought out or range and he would make a perfect kill shot.

We both improved our depths and felt more comfortable to dive deeper in the clear, warm water. Vince had to add an extension to his 50 ft float line and this allowed him to make a couple of shots at deeper depths that he otherwise would not have been able to make. A few times I reached the end of my 50 ft poly line, which was a personal best for me.

My first two shots cost me about $200 per shot—total of $400. Not fun. A big wahoo came in all lit up immediately after Vince speared a fish at one of the FADS. I got a perfect shot on him and he took off and I heard a loud “POP” as my line or my crimp snapped. He made two circles around me, with the spear sticking out both sides and trailing the shooting line and then disappeared into the deep blue with my new shaft and slip tip. I never got another shot at a wahoo the entire time.

The next day I was using a borrowed inflatable float from one of the locals. I got a great shot on my biggest dogtooth, a beautiful 60-70 pound fish, and he took off over the edge of the drop off. I watch the buoy get pulled under and it continued falling to about 50 feet, where it hesitated. I thought—great, it is coming back up. Then it started down again and at over 100 feet it just disappeared into the void. Heartbreaking. I think that the valve or seams failed or the buoy was faulty as it seemed to loose shape as it was pulled down. I think that these terminal tackle failures were the result of my being used to diving with a reel not a float, and the fact that I was unfamiliar with the borrowed gear since I did not have time to go to Mexico to pick up my own. Those two shots were some expensive lessons.

Another first for us was the encounter of some very large, 70-100 pound Napoleon wrasse. These are massive, beautiful, bright green fish that live deep in sixty to eighty feet of water in caves in some huge coral heads. They cruise around in the open, but don’t come up and are also difficult to get close enough for a shot. We thought of shooting one but it would almost certainly be a loss of spear and tip as well as the fish. They would probably run into their caves, wedge themselves in and they would be too deep for us to try to work the fish out. I was also not ready to loose or bend my last shaft, so we passed.

We dove hard and had a lot of new experiences but for us there were not a lot of fish. It could have been our timing or off season. The report of the 100 kilo dogtooth that I heard about, I feel was maybe exaggerated and I never saw any pictures. But diving in the purple, warm water was spectacular and the locals were very receptive and friendly. Like most dive trips, the things that I hoped for or expected, for the most part, did not happen, but the Gods as usual, had equal or greater gifts in store for us in the form of new surprises and unexpected adventures. And one gift from Santa Neptune that I will not forget is the first doggie I got for Christmas.

May 2001 be a great year for all of us underwater.

Dix Roper
Christmas 2000
LA and Cedros Island Baja