"A Cuda Kill Deep in the Gulf" By Patrick Green

Back in June sometime My friend Marty an I found ourselves about 15 miles offshore, slipping into the tepid azure water above the Empire Mica, perhaps one of the best known wrecks of the Florida Panhandle. Marty and all of my other diving buddies (and anyone else I had ever mentioned it around) had made a huge deal to me that I had to dive the ‘Mica or I was missing a huge part of the experience of diving itself and couldn't properly call myself a real diver until I rectified the situation. So with that background and the resulting high expectations I was floating 130 or so feet above the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, quickly pulling all three of the bands back on my JBL Competition Magnum XHD, and preparing to chase my dive buddy to the bottom to minimize his head start.
The water was unusually clear and a little less than halfway down the structure of the wreck emerged from the gloom. It was about the same time I could make out the ghostly form of the 435 ft ship that I realized that everyone of the big fish we had seen on the bottom machine while topside were Barracuda! There were about 100 of them visibly at some points and they quickly became interested in us, shadowing sightly behind and above us ranging from five to fifty feet back, until we reached the collapsed bow section of the wreck. Being slowly followed by a massive school of predators is hands down one of the most unsettling experiences a human can have. With the school of ‘cudas receding into the distance we went to work looking for grouper to bring home for dinner. Marty, still slightly ahead of me, spots a nice 20lb gag grouper in front of us and rather hurriedly takes his shot before I can line up a shot of my own. He nailed it right center of its body, nowhere near the spine or brain just muscle, and the fish goes nuts swimming rapidly all over the place. This of course brings in our hundred of so friends faster than Marty could pull in half the line to the grouper, and for one moment it looked as if they were just going to watch Marty wrestle this gut shot grouper. Then one of the big ones (5.5') shot between us so fast all you could see was a blur of scale and teeth, when it passed there was no more struggle from the grouper as only the back half remained attached to the spear Marty was now pulling in.
It then seemed as if the word got out that the two noisy things blowing bubbles were in the business of giving out free meals, because all of the ‘Cudas got very friendly at that point. Many got so close I had to jab them with my gun.
We both decided to abort the dive and save bottom time at that point and headed for the surface. Once we were safely back in the boat and had had time to forget how unnerved the fish with the killer smiles had made us we got pretty indignant about having to call the dive and losing dinner. Indignation soon gave way to angry blustering about payback and shortly after a few statements about how we were going to tear up them cudas next time.... we decided o wait out the rect of our surface interval by freediving for Barracuda. I don't believe either of us actually thought we were going to shoot anything since neither one of us were real freedivers capable of swimming to great depths without tanks, nor had we previously encountered the kill joys until we were at about 60 feet of so.
just no way a fatally wounded fish could be this strong! Several moments passed with me kicking my split fins as fast as I could and getting slowly deeper before I could make any headway back to the surface, all the while wonderng if I would have to let go of the gun to get just 15 feet back to border between our worlds. Finally an eternity after taking my shot (probably 15 secs) and with my lungs on fire I was able to struggle to the surface and breathe for a second. I decided at that point that instead of going for the traditional method of knifing my prey in the brain and attaching it to my stringer, I was going to swim 50 feet to the boat and haul my catch aboard and then finish it off, as our fierce struggle had brought up some of the largest Barracuda I have ever seen to date and they were all looking at their wounded comrade like any moment now there would be another toothy flash (not something I wanted my hands near) and only half a fish left for me to claim.
As I past Marty about half way back to the boat I was able to watch him sling a steel bolt dead center into the skull of a particularly nasty looking ‘cuda from point blank range. To boh of our absolute horror it literally bounced off the things head leaving a little scratch and flaking a few scales loose. The fish did appear dazed for a few moments though. After that display of toughness we scrambled back aboard Marty's 23` center console Century as if the water was acid. We didn't even make our second dive since we knew we wouldn't have a prayer of carrying anything back through that school of swimming razor blades. So with a fish and a half in the cooler we headed for home and started an interesting conversation about wether or not we could eat my little trophy.

Pat Green (panama City Madman)

The problem was that we had both been told that barracuda carry a biotoxin that leads to a disease called Ciguatera ( not Che Guevara) but we had also heard that they great eating.
Ciguatera is the largest reported type marine toxin disease in the world. It is caused by microscopic dinoflagellates living in tropical to sub-tropical waters that actually produce what is called Ciguatoxin. They get eaten by little fish and the little fish get eaten by the bigger fish and so on and so on. So animals at the top of the food chain can carry a large amount of the toxin if their prey lives in waters that support the dinoflagellates. Ciguatera affects 3 of the bodies systems; gastrointestinal, nervous, and cardiovascular. This disease causes; vomitting, diarrhea, dizziness, numbness, false sensations in the extremities, reversal of the perception of hot and cold, shortness of breath, arythmia, extreme fatigue (to the point of prostration), a hand full of other nasties and death. It isn't uncommon for victims to have symptoms lasting years after the fact
We really weren't sure if we could safely consume this fish without getting ill or not (I was not aware of all the facts listed above) but decided we were most likely safe and decided to fire up the grill when we got back to Panama City. Cleaning barracuda is very easy, just slit the skin dorsally and ventrally then cut just a little into the tail so you can get a little skin to grip and pull the whole thing (scales and all) off, one side at a time. The blood lines are obvious and easy to remove as well. We just had to filet the rest, rub with butter and season to taste (I prefer Cavenders and Old Bay). The firm large flakes were perfect for grilling and in the end it was delicious, similar to grouper but with a slight flavor all its own. We were both fine and upon doing some research Ciguatera isn't supposed to occur further north than the Keys.
So the next time you lose a dinner to a ‘Cuda remember they ‘re on the menu too!