Portsmouth Night Dive

[mcdiver]

We were a little late in getting the dive started, but what a dive it turned out to be.

Arcflash was a little late in getting to the campground due to a travel trailer deciding to tip-over in the middle of the interstate, but that may have been a blessing in disguise.

We entered the water at 10pm on Friday night, we had decided to keep the dive at about the thermoclione level since I was diving wet and he was diving dry. I have never seen so many northerns on one dive in my entire life, just laying in the weeds waiting to be petted by Arcflash. I would try to get on one end and he on the other as we "scoped" these prize northerns.

We turned at about 1800 psi and slowly made our way back, once again, encountering "rod bending" northerns. We came upon a wall that we did not remember seeing on our decent, we may have just slowly decended over it without realizing it, but there we encountered a very sweet bass just waiting for us.

We finally decided to surface after an hour of blowing bubbles and since things did not look familiar on the bottom. Upon reaching the surface, there was this eerie mist and fog that had settled on the surface, something like you might see in a mystery movie when you are at a cemetary or something, it was really cool. We discovered that we had in fact swam by our planned exit point, but with the mist and fog on the surface, it was a little difficult to really tell exactly where we were, but a short surface swim around the point put us back on tract.

It was in fact the sweetest night dive I had ever done, thanks buddy.

[nellamit]

I had a similar experience in Mahnomen 2/3 back in late june. Carl & I entered the water about 10pm. Below the thermocline we only saw eelpout, which was interesting in itself as i had never seen one while diving, but then we moved above the thermocline and we saw large bass, crappie, bluegill, trout, and northern. Our bottom time was 52 minutes. We ended up in on the other side of Mahnomen 3 across from the ramp, low on air, with a long surface swim ahead of us. Even the surface swim was great. The water was smooth as glass, full moon, sky full of stars. We just layed on our back and slowly kicked our way accross the lake. It was one of the best dives of my life.

[arcFlash]

That was a sweet dive! Night dives are just too fun.

The fog was my favorite, huge fish are ok but surfacing at night and looking around is always so cool. The fog just gives everything that superhero flair I like so much.

[mcdiver]

You know, it was such a good dive that I think I will dive it again later this fall. Road trip to the quarries later in the afternoon and make 2 night dives, but not necessarily both at the same pit.