Coastal Bend Rods: SPI - Spearfishing with a whale shark!!!

On saturday 9/24, I had one of the greatest experiences I've ever had on the water. Keith, Cesar and I headed out of the jetties and ended up at the Little Sarah rig about 10 miles out. Keith and Cesar jumped right in with their snorkels, and I decided to stay in the boat and drop down to try to catch some snapper. I had a couple snaps and grouper to the boat and had gotten hit by a big 'cuda, but nothing too exciting. After about an hour, Cesar finally got a shot on a big ling that they had been stalking. We decided to stick around a little longer, so I geared up and jumped in to check out the scene underwater. The visibility was about 60'+ and there was almost no current. The rig was a beautiful sight and there were lots of fish on it. Most of the snapper we could see were just out of range, but there were lots of big barracuda cruising around. I was getting ready to shoot a barracuda when I heard Keith yell that a whale shark was coming in. I looked over and saw the 25'-30' behemoth slowly swimming toward me!! We swam toward it and could see that there were about 10 big ling swimming with it. For the next hour or so, the shark was circling the rig, and it came up about 4 or five times. We were picking off the ling at every opportunity and taking short rides on it's fins.... We took a little break, and as soon as I got back in the water, it was coming up at about a 45 degree angle about 20 yards from me. I swam to it, shot a ling, and then grabbed its dorsal fin. It kept coming up, so I let go of the dorsal and grabbed its tail. By then it was on the surface, and I got a nice tail ride for about 5 swoops of it's tail!! The whole time, I had the ling pulling on the line, but I was able to pull out the camera and take the video. In the video, you can see my shot ling, Caesar taking a fin ride, and Keith going in for a shot that he decided not to take. You can also see a snapper that was caught by a kid in a little skiff on the surface. After this last encounter, we loaded up and went to the sea buoy where we found a nice tripletail sitting under the buoy. I got up close and personal with it and gave it a skewering... From there, we hit the end of the jetties. I stayed in the boat and fished for some of the tarpon that they were seeing, while they shot several more mangrove snapper. We ended the day with five nice ling, the tripletail, and about 8 mangrove snapper!!! I must say, Keith has found a cool new hobby and I can't wait to get out there again with him! This trip will be stuck in my head forever. I'll never forget taking a ride on the biggest fish that swims in the ocean, and I'm really glad I had the camera to capture some shots of this beautiful animal!!
This was the first thing I saw when I jumped in: