ive ran into big snapping turtles, big american eels and big cats while on commercial diving jobs.
i was doing a camera recovery in Round Valley Resevoir in NJ along the dam in 150-160ft of water and just found the Nikonos 5 camera a open water diver dropped getting back into the boat when his camera thether broke. i reached down to pick up the camera and caught movement out of the corner of my eye, at the edge of my lights visibility (abt 15-20ft) i saw this big white thing heading towards me, i grabbed the handle of my dexter russell knife as a huge albino catfish head came into focus, i pulled my arms tight against my body as it swam by. it was at least a foot across the head and at least 6ft long. the whiskers were well over a foot long, after he swam by and out of view, i grabbed the camera and stuffed it into my gear bag and started my ascent.
i was on a job in Bayonne NJ on the Arthur Kill and the bottom under this pier had all kinds of junk debris there and it was full of American Eels, some at least 5ft long, i stayed away from them. i learned my lesson many years ago as a fresh diver abt 16 when i speared one off sandy hook, it pulled the spear thru its body and swam up that nice strong line attatched to the speargun that was on a wrist thether. that thing kicked my ass with no feet, it wrapped me up and scared the crap out of me. good thing it didnt have teeth like a moray eel. i never shot one again, now the blackfish and fluke were another story.
i was free diving in the Delaware River close to me and was checking out the rocks under the bridge for anything worthwhile to bring up and looked under a rock ledge and went face to face with a big catfish, i have no idea how big it was, but it filled my facemask from side to side
ive done some deep water salvage jobs, like recovering a snagged ocean scallop dredge in 90ft of water off Atlantic City NJ (abt 20ft long, 15ft wide and abt 6ft tall cage with a black suction hose off the side) and the smaller sharks 8 to 10fters are always circling the upline, those i dont worry about too much, its the ones that eat those ones i keep an eye out for, at least i will give them indigestion when they try to crap out my dive helmet and gear, so i will get the last laugh, LOL
