How Stupid Would This Be?

[AandA]

Sounds tempting.

However in your situation I would avoid this dive for a few reasons. You indicate that you have completed over forty dives. This is very good. Forty dives is sufficient to start getting a real feel for the sport. It is not in my opinion, sufficient time, or training, to begin solo diving. You mention that you would bring only one tank. One of the foundation tenets of diving, ESPECIALY SOLO DIVING, is redundancy. You can always depend on one thing, the one thing is, that things will go wrong. This is not an if question, but a when question. Without proper training and equipment this can result in a situation that may cause serious harm or death. One tank means only one air source, usually your buddy is the other air source. Have you considered how YOU will handle the situation of an out-of-air emergency. There are ways to handle this, the question is do YOU know how YOU will do it? When diving in an area used for fishing are you prepared to handle entanglement? You also indicate that this would be your very first solo dive. Probably a very poor place to start. Firsts SHOULD normally be done on familiar turf with equipment you are used to and a dive mission that you are familiar with (have you done search and recovery dives). SOLO diving itself is still controversial. Those divers who enjoy this type of diving, and do so reasonably safely, are advanced/master divers or higher with well over a hundred hours of diving. They have also received additional training specific to techniques of self rescue, and are properly equipped.

You indicate that the water where you lost the equipment is only six to ten feet deep. I would reccomend that you snorkel/free dive in order to retrieve your lost fishing gear. the water depth should be well within your comfortable range no matter what your ability without a tank.