Narimanabad, etc.

Good evening to everyone suffering from the same disease, known as hunting and fishing!

So, my friends and I decided to go and check out the southern part of Azerbaijan, Narimanabad to be exact. We left at 5 at night and were there by 9. There were three of us on the team: me, Dima (Lomonosov) and Natik (Osman). When we got to Narimanabad we saw loads of spots for spearfishing and loads of "network administrators" — there weren't just a lot of nets, there were a hell of a lot. The village where all this was going on is called Balıqçılar, and from the name alone you can probably work out and imagine how many kinds of fishing they use for catching, poisoning, screwing, etc. the fish. Anyway, Dima and Natik went into the water first. Since my spearfishing wetsuit was by Versace, I was way too glamorous for this party, so I decided to take a rest and guard the car from the pesky "paparazzi" of Balıqçılar village. Anyway, about 2 hours later they came out, Natik with catfish and Dimych with mullet — the thing is, one swam along the right side of the bay and the other along the left, and there you go, the results speak for themselves. Unfortunately I don't have the photos on me right now, but I'll definitely post them tonight. Then, after checking the weather report for Baku, we headed toward the capital. Getting there wasn't easy, of course, but at that moment our "fifteen" turned into an all-terrain vehicle, and after driving around a couple of sand dunes a metre high we arrived at a picturesque spot Dimon had told us about. Seeing all this beauty — blue sea and endless rock ridges, at different depths too — everyone started getting changed. We went into the water, and all I had to do was put my head underwater and a kutum, about a kilo, shot out right in front of me and waved goodbye to me with its shiny tail. That's when I got really fired up, and it heated up my burning desire to shoot something, and I was so fired up that after swimming for 3 hours I didn't even notice it was already December with New Year just around the corner, etc. There was an unbelievable amount of fish. So, about 5 minutes later I'm swimming between the ridges and I see a mullet grazing away, and I froze right there. Figuring out where it was going next, I'd already pointed the speargun exactly the way it was swimming, so I didn't even have to aim. Shot, and hit it right in the spine, and for some reason the spear came out of its mouth. Well, I think, lots of fish, got to do something, and I started coming up with all kinds of crap on my own, and as a result I lost a whole hour of golden time. I swam out to the deep, thinking it'd be better there, but as it turned out all the fish were in the shallows between the rocks and ridges. Since we'd got to this paradise at around 4, there wasn't much time left to swim, an hour to be exact. So I decided to go back to the shallows, and since the gun was heavy to hold at arm's length, I took it in my left hand and gave my right one a rest. I'm swimming along and suddenly out she comes in front of me — a mullet of about two, two and a half kilos. I'd never seen a submarine like that before. I slowly started bringing the gun out, well, and she noticed, and while I was trying to aim she started slowly, slowly moving off — shot, and missed by 2 centimetres, which ruined my whole evening afterwards every time I remembered that miss. Anyway, right then I saw Dima and Natik. They'd shot plenty too: Dimych got about 10, Osmanych about 5, and me one. So we got out, started getting dressed and sharing our impressions. And most importantly taking pictures, but alas, the camera battery ran out, and we had to make do with the photos I'd managed to take. On the way we stopped at a little café, had some tea and headed back to Baku. The fishing was awesome, and a huge thank-you for that to the guys, Dima and Natik, and to our all-terrain vehicle. Right now I'm just living in hope of good weather at the end of this week so I can head out there again!!!