5-10-15

Joe Kistel, Alex Fogg, and Grayson Shepard were on a mission to harvest and film extremely dense congregations of invasive Lionfish for the upcoming "Lionfish Removal and Awareness" event. The underwater efforts took place offshore Apalachicola Florida in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. The team members performed three dives each; Grayson and Alex harvested as many lionfish as they could fit in their containers while Kistel filmed the outrageous numbers of the Lionfish present and the harvest extravaganza. The dives were very productive with over several hundred invasive fish harvested and quality documentary footage captured.

During the very last dive of the day, Grayson was performing a safety stop at 15 feet when a large Great White Shark approached him. Grayson was caught by surprise and was slightly concerned when realized he was holding a bag of fish meat (captured Lionfish). You can see the intimate encounter Grayson shared with the large shark below:

Video captured by Grayson on his GoPro and edited together by Joe Kistel. Check out the crazy amount of Lionfish we captured on video this day here.