Do flounders like divers?
Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2018 8:26 am
Howdy Folks.
We had a fun ThThTh dive at Redondo last night with 7 divers attending.
It was baking hot in the parking lot, so we were in a hurry to make our splash once the suit up commenced. Despite taking precautions against the heat, my camera dome fogged up when I hit the water :( So I spent the first 30 mins of my dive in 25 feet of water waiting for my dome port to defog.
In the meantime, I was just floating around enjoying the wonderful viz and sunshine. At one point, I noticed maybe 7 flounders bunched up in one spot, where my buddy had previously been futzing around. I thought that was pretty unusual to see so many flounders in one spot, very cool! I noticed they were feeding on the bottom. Hmm, I wondered if the diver disturbance in that area had uncovered food for them. So just for fun I scooped up some nearby sand/rocks on purpose. Low and behold very soon several flounders went into the area I disturbed and started feeding, pulling out worms, etc! Pretty cool! Now here's the weird part -- flounders started coming out of the wood work! They must have been attracted from a distance because soon, I counted 24 flounders in the area! It was amazing. I wondered if they were smelling the food, or somehow communicating or what? It was fun to watch them!
Then just as an experiment, I swam 15-20 feet away to an area that had no flounders. I was hovering perfectly in trim with no silt disturbance. Sure enough, several flounders came towards me, presumably looking for food! Very interesting, I wonder if flounders at redondo usually associate divers with food, or if was from learning from me just several minutes prior. Either way, very intersting, I'll be studying them in the future.
Most of the flounder were still back at the disturbance... I was enjoying myself when suddenly, I saw all the flounder swim off in a hurry. What the heck? Then I saw a seal swooping by. Woosh, that makes sense. A few minutes later the flounders returned to their dig.
What a fun experience! I spent the second half of my dive looking for sixgill. No luck but I did see a ratfish.
Happy Friday and have a great weekend!
We had a fun ThThTh dive at Redondo last night with 7 divers attending.
It was baking hot in the parking lot, so we were in a hurry to make our splash once the suit up commenced. Despite taking precautions against the heat, my camera dome fogged up when I hit the water :( So I spent the first 30 mins of my dive in 25 feet of water waiting for my dome port to defog.
In the meantime, I was just floating around enjoying the wonderful viz and sunshine. At one point, I noticed maybe 7 flounders bunched up in one spot, where my buddy had previously been futzing around. I thought that was pretty unusual to see so many flounders in one spot, very cool! I noticed they were feeding on the bottom. Hmm, I wondered if the diver disturbance in that area had uncovered food for them. So just for fun I scooped up some nearby sand/rocks on purpose. Low and behold very soon several flounders went into the area I disturbed and started feeding, pulling out worms, etc! Pretty cool! Now here's the weird part -- flounders started coming out of the wood work! They must have been attracted from a distance because soon, I counted 24 flounders in the area! It was amazing. I wondered if they were smelling the food, or somehow communicating or what? It was fun to watch them!
Then just as an experiment, I swam 15-20 feet away to an area that had no flounders. I was hovering perfectly in trim with no silt disturbance. Sure enough, several flounders came towards me, presumably looking for food! Very interesting, I wonder if flounders at redondo usually associate divers with food, or if was from learning from me just several minutes prior. Either way, very intersting, I'll be studying them in the future.
Most of the flounder were still back at the disturbance... I was enjoying myself when suddenly, I saw all the flounder swim off in a hurry. What the heck? Then I saw a seal swooping by. Woosh, that makes sense. A few minutes later the flounders returned to their dig.
What a fun experience! I spent the second half of my dive looking for sixgill. No luck but I did see a ratfish.
