In this paper, we present bit error rate(BER) performance of an adaptive decision feedback equalizer(DFE) using experimental data. The experiment was performed at the shore of Geoje in November 2007. The BER of the adaptive DFE whose tap weight is updated by RLS is described with change of feedforward filter length, feedback filter length, training sequence length, and delay, which shows that the uncoded average BER is $4{ imes}10^2;and;1.5{ imes}10^{-2}$ with transmission range of 9.7km and 4km, respectively. The BER of the adaptive DFE can be lower than 10-3 by a forward error correction code and therefore the adaptive DFE may be a good candidate for a high speed AUV communications since the volume and weight of the underwater acoustic modem should be small because of the restricted space and power in the battery-operated AUV.