picture of WORLD RECORD Mediterranean snapper

[SeaBiscuit]

Let me begin by reminding you fellas that the statue of limitations on my youthful indiscretions has long expired.
Doing the wrong thing for fun is inexcusable. Doing it to survive is still wrong, but possibly not quite as much. Does this mean that the rec fisherman who breaks the rules is more guilty than the commercial who does the same? Controversial as it may be, I believe it's true. Destroying the resource is a crime we will all answer to God for. Doing it to put food on the table, might let you wiggle out of damnation. Doing it to brag or satisfy some killing instinct within will not!

Indian summer in Greece is a blessed time. The water is still warm, but cooling. The days warm yet comfortable. The nights remind you why man's greatest friend has always been fire. As October rolls along the Greek countryside, the tourists are all but gone. Demand on goods and services declines. Ancient natural rhythms have the earth ripening and all creatures on the move. Fishes included!

As the demand for premium, high quality seafood declines, so do the prices. One can still make it fishing grouper & snapper, but having seen the high prices of the summer months, most Greek fishermen refuse to target the same fish for a much reduced return. Perhaps this too is one of nature's rhythms, intended to give fish stock, abused for more than 4,000 years, a little breather.

Bottom fish are "local". They belong to the people who live and work those waters. Nothing was more upsetting to the Greeks, than when an Italian crew, sporting fast inflatables with outboards, scuba gear, bang sticks and bottles of chlorine would night dive, kill a special fish and show up at the little town with it. There was sincere mourning for the fish and hatred for the killers. Those were, after all, our fish. Many times they had beaten us fair and square on a hand line, only to be unceremoniously dumped on the market, by someone who did not need the money.

Migratory species are another story. The Adriatic, beginning in Malta and reaching Slovenia, is a sea that has sustained it's people by fishing. Greeks, Italians, Albanians, Croats, Serbians, Bosnians and Slovenians (or whatever each of them called themselves at different times) have been fishing these waters hard, trying to feed their families. The attitude regarding pelagics and migratory species is: "if I don't take it, then the next guy will". Kind of like our current "global" bluefin fishery attitudes. October is when the fish are moving. Fishing shifts from quality to quantity. The seiners capture entire schools of sardines, mackerel, tunnies and bonita. The gilnetters "round up" entire schools of mullet, small sea bream and bass in the shallows. The hand lines shift to long lining for baby swords & the occasional bluefin & shark. The gigers start to hunt octopus day and night. The first time I ever went gigging it was on my cousin Dennis's boat. It was early October and in a brief 4 hours of gigging under the lights we got almost 40 kilos of octopus. That was a night never to be repeated. That rear combination of the right time of year, the right moon phase and the best gig fisherman in those parts will never again happen. He was probably 15 years old at that time. I was 10 or so.

We generally dynamite fished in shallow (20 feet or less) water. As you know from an earlier story, we sometimes chummed up a spot and hit it a bit later. Sometimes we bomb blind at what the captain thought was a likely to hold fish location. Blowing that location up would, of course, guarantee that it'd be a long time before it ever held fish again.
The most exciting way to dynamite fish was going after running schools of fish in the fall. The captain & chief pyrotechnician would leave the boat and climb a hill for an elevated perspective. The mate would stay with the boat, sit still and watch. Mullets run big in the fall. Nothing like the endless schools of Carolina roe mullet, but large numbers and sizes by Greek standards. They also have "decent" market value, along the lines of a couple of dollars per pound. One hundred pounds is a good kill. One hundred kilos a great one!
The captain looks for a school of moving fish. They always follow the contours of the shore and stay in the shallows. When he sees a school, he must estimate the size and decide if precious dynamite should be used on this particular school. If he thinks yes, he must anticipate the movement of the school, throw a couple of pebbles just ahead of them to get them used to the sound of something entering the water and keep them from spooking, light the fuse and let fly.

This is what captain Nick working on the hillside looked like to the silent young mates:


If you look closely, you will see a "double" just leaving Nick's hand. He was on a good school of mullet. This is the explosion that killed most of them, (about 60 kilos) that day



When dynamite explodes underwater, compressed gases radiate out from the site of the explosion. Any creature with an air sac within range of this explosion dies. The smallest anchovy as well as the biggest grouper. This radius of death is proportional to the size of the explosion, which is proportional to the amount of dynamite used, which (dynamite) is thankfully very expensive at the black market. If it was cheap many more fish and fishermen would have died because of it.
Depending on the state of the air sac at the time of the explosion (inflating vs. deflating) the dead or dying fish either floats or sinks. My job was to quickly get to the site of impact and start putting the fish in the boat, always starting with the floaters first. Once those were gathered up I would proceed to gig the ones that sank to the bottom working fast under the watchful eye of my captain, settled on the hill, smoking a cigarette and scanning the horizon for the coastguard.

SeaBiscuit

[WAHOONBOX]

IT'S A DIFFERENT WORLD....A DIFFERENT SURVIVAL....A DIFFERENT UHHH

IT'S VERY DIFFERNET IN GREECE......YOUR WORLD


GREAT HONEST STORY!

[JMS-ILM]

i was wondering when the next installment was going to be....great story.

i mean, where else can you get pics of a big greek dude in a speedo hurling dynamite into the water from a mountainside, all in the name of killing some fish??? Thats right! Sportfishermen.com!

[BTH284]

Good to hear Yannis is being stubborn Nick

Another great installement here with this write up. When I saw the pictures I thought he was gonna dive in after the fish floated up.

[Admin]

What a amazing read thanks so much for this post !

[SeaBiscuit]

I know today that those 1981 summer and fall days I spent in Astakos fishing with captains Yannis and Nick Galiatsos were some of the best days of my life. Much like my first Oregon inlet Thanksgiving large bluefish blitz with my brothers in law. Or my first ever yellowfin tuna light lining off the back of the Carolina Princess with my best man Jim. Or blue fining with the Beast and my brother Peter in the 90's off Morehead. Or every time I take my sons fishing. People I love and fishing have filled my memory bank with unforgettable times. I have always relied on my mind to capture such moments, often neglecting to document in photographs or video.
Thankfully, my brother Peter, being much more of the "scientist" in our early fishing days, always tried to have a camera available and ready. Looking over photos of those '81 days, has a strange affect on my brain's chemistry. I swear I can close my eyes and smell the little boat's unique blend of wood, diesel and salt scents. I can picture the calm, clear water and feel the sharp point at the business end of the gigs. Taste the spartan boat meals of bread, cheese olives and tomatoes. I can hear the silence of those nights.

In this, previously posted picture, captains Yannis and Nick are seen with two very large groupers that captain Yannis and I caught on a memorable summer early morning. One of these fish was rocked up, when we got to the hand line. This story is about dealing with such a stubborn fish.



Just below the old man's left hand a white ring can be seen. This is a heavy, smooth ceramic ring, attached to a length of rope and used to try to coax a rocked up grouper out of his hole.

When a grouper holes up, he will, typically, turn facing out and flare his gill covers to wedge himself in place. Any amount of tugging on the line will accomplish nothing more than breaking it and loosing the fish. Loosing such a fish, when you only see a few of them over the course of a year, is not a pleasant event. The smaller of the two groupers in this picture was holed up when captain Yannis came tight to it. He passed the line through the center of the ring, which he then let slide down to the fish. He held both the fishing line and the ring rope, while having me position the boat so that the angle to the fish was constantly changed. Alternating between giving a bit of slack and coming tight again, he was attempting to get the ring around all obstacles and "over" the fish's snout. When successful, the ring applies heavy pressure directly to the grouper's face and he eventually retracts his gill covers and comes out to fight! That happens about one third of the time. We were lucky on that fish!

If using the ring fails to coax the fish out, the alternative is to tie a jug on to the fishing line. The float must be directly overhead the fish and under enough pressure to be partially submerged. It is left to work on the fish for at least one day. Combined with the wave action, the float exerts steady and constant pressure on the fish, sometimes making him come out. If he does, he generally looses the battle against the float and ends up dying fighting it, if unable to break it off. This works only some of the time, but captains Yannis and Nick did not really care to use this method, as they were afraid that another fisherman might happen by and either mess with it, or worse, steal their fish.

Other than the two above described methods there is little else one can do, unless that someone is a very strong and determined man in his prime, much as captain Nick was in those days. He and I would often go free diving for octopus and shellfish. Being young and athletic at the time, I wanted to at least keep up with him under water. Although I persevered through nose bleeds and throbbing ear drums, I was never able to stay with Nick. My brother Peter never even tried! Nick, who as you remember is uncomfortable, heavy and timid on dry land is at ease under water. I believe that the only time he would come up was whenever he was in the mood to smoke a cigarette!

One fine October morning, Nick, Peter and I were working a few hand lines near the "Tongue". The Tongue is a little rock peninsula marking the south entrance of Astakos bay. The rock there is bright white, the water very clear and always reflecting shades of emerald even in depths of 40 + feet. We had had a decent night of gigging nearby, with a catch of mostly octopus, which were showing up good in shallows in anticipation of their October full moon spawning rituals. A good grouper would make the catch very good, and having all those fresh octopus baits made the decision to fish hand lines effortless. We had probably set a dozen and a half that morning and after retrieving most of them, we had nothing but a big silver conger eel to show for our efforts. Conger eels are not much prized as food fish, probably due to their large snake like appearance, so they typically end up at the fisherman's table, rather than the market.
One of our last three lines was behind a little rock outcropping and not visible from the area we were working. Coming around the bend, Nick pointed at it and winked with a smile. That wink and smile, once again, brought back memories of Nick's late brother Denis to me.

Denis was the hero of my preteen years. He was the one I wanted to grow up to be like. Just a few short years ago, he and I fell in love with the same girl. Her name was Alexandra. She was the daughter of Greeks who had returned to Astakos after many years as migrant workers in Germany. Alexandra's family leased captain Yanni's restaurant for the 1978 season. I was 14 at the time and spending the summer in Astakos, working at another uncle's grocery store, fishing a bunch and eagerly trying to become a man. Alexandra was 15. Milky skin and dark curly hair. Born and raised in Germany, she was "exotic" and very attractive to us country kids. Being very shy and accustomed to falling in love on a regular basis, I never told her how I felt about her. I did make sure to eat at her folks restaurant though every chance I got. Being around her was enough for me. Many of the town's boys were vying for Alexandra's affections with some slim hopes of success up until the moment when Denis took an interest. It was all over within days! She was his and they were getting married that fall!

Following is a picture of a 19 year old Denis during the summer of '78


Captain Nick took a hold of the tight hand line and immediately knew that there was a good fish on the other end, but also that he was rocked up. Methodically, he coiled the line on the little boat's bow, careful not to exert much pressure on the fish. When on top of the fish, Nick used his ring trying to get the grouper out for what seemed like hours. That required way more patience than I had, so I went for a swim and started gathering rock oysters for our breakfast. While bringing a batch of oysters to the boat, I noticed that Nick was no longer working the ring. He was getting a mask and snorkel on! I looked down below me. The bottom looked near 50 feet down to me. I could see the heavy mono disappearing under a ledge. I had been down 50 feet before once or twice. Tangled with an octopus at that depth once and I thought it was my end! A 3-4 pound octopus had enough suction strength with half its tentacles wrapped around my hand and the other half holding on to a large boulder to keep me under one second too long. I did not see angels and lights at the end of a tunnel, but did get scared enough to not ever attempt working at that depth again. Captain Nick was getting ready to do just that though and, hanging from the little boat looking down through my mask, I had a first row seat to the event. Nick made two "exploratory" dives to gauge the situation down there. Each time he came up for air, he said nothing. Peter and I kept looking at each other wondering what was going on down there and inside Nick's head. The third dive was the one. Nick's upper body disappeared under the ledge. A cloud of sand and dust suddenly engulfed him. I could see his feet kicking hard, while his entire body was being jerked side to side. At that moment I did not need my snorkel, as I was no longer breathing.

Here's what Peter saw when Nick's face finally broke the surface after 3 minutes down there:


Cheers,
SeaBiscuit

[JMS-ILM]

great read my friend, great read......

[Jer]

Nick wanted that grouper bad! Amazing.

[Admin]

Nick that is wild , i really have enjoyed reading all of this.
I could not imagine diving down 50 feet to get my fish.
I think if i ever tangles with a octopus and got held under for a second it would be my last trip down for the rest of my life.

I could not imagine getting held in a spot by one even for a second.

As for putting a float ball on fish to bring them out of a hole is a wild. I would imagine you could also do this with Tile fish that go back in a hole.

Great read man completely have enjoyed it.
Look forward to more

[Bite Me]

Seems like a whole different way of getting the job done. Not to mention the dynamite trick.
What is the latest on your uncle? Is he or any of your other family back home aware or your exploits here in the States? Seems to me that your stories and photos here would make them proud.