GOT ON THE FIN

PLOTS

These guys are very lucky: they know a place where you can not rush anywhere. There you forget about the bosses and subordinates and even about your own weight. Probably, from their cold-blooded neighbors on the bottom, underwater hunters adopt the ability to live ...

These guys are very lucky: they know a place where you can not rush anywhere. There you forget about the bosses and subordinates and even about your own weight. Probably, from their cold-blooded neighbors on the bottom, underwater hunters adopt the ability to live leisurely and for their own pleasure. They have something to be proud of: a real hunter does not depend on a scuba piece of iron, relies only on himself and defeats the fish on his territory. Pros from the city of Engels, in the Saratov region, agreed to take me to places where land citizens do not look.

Fins and wings

No matter how I convinced the underwater hunters that I would throw myself into the abyss without prior preparation, I could not get out of the briefing. The sight of the schedule makes your eyes pop: 34 hours of lectures on sports medicine, ichthyology, safety, instrumentation, etc. I was also lucky: the "psychological reaction and motor skills" of my interlocutors were tested in an ice hole - the fishing club "Kitoboy" was born in the fall, and the first dive, which determines a person's suitability for spearfishing, had to be done from ice.

The club was organized by the pilots of the Engels Long-Range Aviation Division. “No wonder they say that the sky is the fifth ocean. A pilot and a hunter-submariner have in common a propensity for risk. The aquatic environment has its advantages: in the air you trust life to iron, but here everything depends only on you, ”says Sergey Korotaev, president of Kitoboy (deputy chief of staff of the aviation regiment).

At the bottom, the owners of shoulder straps can forget about the army hierarchy. In November, the navigator of the regiment Oleg decided to join the club. The newcomer was taken to a non-freezing gully near the water intake. He did not know how to handle the mask, he drank water. With the help of an oar, I had to drive the unfortunate diver into the reeds. Not in vain: after 5 minutes, the navigator jumped out with a kilogram pike and a cry: “I became an underwater hunter!”. By rank, Oleg is a lieutenant colonel, ensign Sergei drove him with an oar - and on land he had nothing for it.

More than three dozen people gather in a small room littered with books with fish faces on their covers. The people are mostly solid - it is problematic for a student to save $ 500 for equipment. In spearfishing, there is also a medical qualification: at depth, eye vessels and an eardrum can burst - people with heart and lung diseases should not sink to the bottom. However, there would be a desire. The oldest member of the club, Anatoly Gavrilovich, is well over 60. During the first dive, he lost his dentures. But he didn’t lose interest in extreme sports: “I can’t sit under a bush with a fishing rod. The mentality is not the same."

Fish temperament

Having properly intrigued me, I was handed a pamphlet "Okhotminimum" and taken to practice - the regional competitions of "submariners". On Shumeyka (the so-called islands and bays near Engels) today it is stormy. Natural waves, reinforced by the release of water from the hydroelectric power station, beat into the sandy beach. To push the motorboats away from the shore, the fishermen enter the river up to their chests. The fish will be "working" today. It's probably stuck in holes. You won't get more than 8 kilos.

The worst time to hunt is in the spring - in high water and with a strong current, visibility drops to half a meter. It is impossible to get close to prey in such conditions. The minimum required visibility is one and a half to two meters. In summer, as experienced people say, it is good to dive in water meadows. Standing water is visible at 5 meters. The expanse comes in late autumn, when the algae die, and the shore no longer carries garbage, and in winter - in the same pool you can find both predators and "vegetarians".

- Most of the fish are in the "bonfires" (the so-called sunken willows. - N.A.) and under the "roof" (underwater canopies made of reeds and reeds. - N.A.). The catfish warms up there, the carp eats, and the pike hides in ambush. It's useless to climb into the hornwort, it clogs the gills. You won’t find a tail or scales there, - teaches the hunter Alexander (in the land world - the manager of the wholesale base).

Now, if someone in my presence offends a fish by comparing it with an unemotional person, I won’t believe it. The characters in the abyss are still the same. Carp is distinguished by a special sense of dignity (and contempt for bipeds). A representative of this elite, by fishing standards, species (7-8 kilograms) Alexander caught thoughtfully eating a reed bulb. The carp feeds with taste: “blowing” into the base of the stem with water and biting off the pieces cleared of silt.

Noticing the hunter, the fish “shrugged” so clearly and continued its occupation that Alexander did not even shoot. Perhaps such a philosophical attitude to danger is explained by the fact that there are blades on the fins of the carp that can cut the fishing line.

In terms of gourmetism, the carp overtakes the carp: it squeamishly tries the corn bait with its lips and in half the cases it spits it out. Pike perch is considered a sloth. Seeing the hunter, he only hides his head under the snag. Catfish is known as the best fighter. On the middle Volga there are specimens of more than 40 kg. A wounded giant often attacks the offender - it accelerates and beats like a battering ram. A similar monster broke two ribs for the Saratov "submariner" Denis and left a 17-centimeter scar (the hunter was pierced by his own harpoon stuck in a fish side). Catfish can drag a person under a blockage or pinch painfully with gill covers.

— The most curious are perch and pike. You can just hang in the reeds - they themselves poke into the mask. But you see: the dumb little pup, like all children, climbs, he wonders - will I take such a thing? - says Major Korotaev.

Where time trouble ends

On a wooden table in front of me they lay out a spear gun - a long "pistol" with a steel rod on a string. It weighs 400 - 500 grams. In the air, a 9 mm harpoon pierces a 5 cm board through and through (therefore, the weapon can only be loaded under water).

Of course, I won’t take a gun with me - I’d like to emerge myself. Wrapped up in a jacket in the Volga wind, I hardly believe that 5.5 mm of neoprene will provide me with a comfortable swim. Putting on a wetsuit is already a complete extreme. For at least the last 20 years, I've managed my wardrobe items on my own. But in this case, I could not even pull on diving socks without the help of an instructor.

First, the suit is moistened with warm soapy water. "Crawling" into overalls. "Sweater" fastens like a diaper. The hood suffocates and deprives me of probably half of my hair. The mask fogs up (they say that to prevent this from happening, you need to spit in it, but I didn’t dare), and, which is especially unpleasant, under water it (it’s written in the Okhotminimum booklet) can stick into my face like a medical can. The book advises in such cases to exhale into the mask through the nose. Which is impossible in practice, since the most important respiratory organ is tightly pressed by the rubber edge.

You can only walk in fins backwards. I back away until the Volga waters close over my head (the instructors did not deceive me - it’s hot in a wetsuit, like in a bath). Before diving, I was taught to hyperventilate my lungs (several deep breaths), equalize pressure (swallow saliva quickly), not work with my hands underwater, and generally “fall into a state of half-asleep down”. Of course, I immediately forgot all this.

Where land citizens are not destined to look, golden whirlwinds swirl, raised by a storm wave. The sun is indistinguishable, but it breaks and burns in every grain of sand. There are no sounds and, perhaps most importantly, there is no time. I'm not late for anything. This was worth the dive.

I didn’t manage to dive deep - the neoprene suit swells up like a life jacket. Real hunters hang lead weights on their belts (10% of body weight).

Instead of fish, I saw a can of sprats (apparently, someone violated a professional sign and took fish products to the river).

For a good submariner, bottom debris does not pose a particular danger. You need to be much more careful with fishing nets: a person gets confused in them no less than a fish. In this case, hunters always take a knife with them. There are more and more poachers on the Volga. At the market, almost all the fish is cut up by the forbidden “small cell”, even fry are raked out.

Married to a pike

A real fish soup is made from prey: fish, carrots, onions and peppercorns (they say potatoes beat off the true taste). Alcohol during hunting is prohibited. Each submariner comes to the realization of the need for a sober life on his own. “Once on May 1, it was very hard for me. I decided to go down into the reeds,” says manager Alexander. “Suddenly I see a white spot ahead. Thought it was a plastic bottle. Touched her with a pike. It turned out to be soft. He rubbed his eyes - yes, it's a catfish. Well, since I was able to stroke him, I’m thinking, it means he’s dead. And I decided to poke him. And he will jump up, pull with the breakers! The comrades upstairs almost buried me.”

Maybe it is this fundamental difference between underwater fishing and land fishing that softens the hearts of the “second halves”. As my interlocutors say, the first two years of marriage, the wife of a “submariner” is no different from others. “Then he learns to sleep in a tent, cook on a fire, not whine when you are gone for a week.” Spouses are not limited to waiting on the shore. Saratov women are still mastering the mask, snorkel and correspond with friends from Chelyabinsk, who have already assembled the Uvelda Pikes team.