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Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2009
Mon22Jun2009

June 20-21, 2009

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Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2009 | June 22, 2009 | Print

Seas: 1-2 feet
Winds: 5-10 S
Temp: 88 F
Viz: 10-15 feet
My advance apologies for the brevity of this week's blog. Just not in a very literary mood this week, I guess. Luckily, it was a short weekend due to the fact that Father's Day was Sunday and I tried to head back home early to spend it with mine. Unfortunately, some people who are apparently guaranteed employment at the public works in Monroe County decided it would be a good idea to close down northbound US1 on the 18 mile stretch from this past Friday until July 3rd including weekends so it took double the time to get home today.

But hey, getting back to my "brief" (comparatively speaking) blog... we headed out Saturday morning around 8:00a to try and get where we wanted to be by high slack which was supposed to be at 10a. We found very little viz so we ended up staying shallow and hitting a couple of spots that kept us out of the strong currents. Unfortunately, the current wasn't the only thing we ended up avoiding (at least at first). We hit 3 or 4 different areas during that couple of hours and only ended up with a few snappers, hogfish and mackerel to show for it. The last shallow spot we ended up in had us running into 3 bull sharks. Luckily we didn't have any fish on so they didn't seem too interested in us, but it obviously motivated us to move on.

We finished up at one of our patch reefs in about 30 feet of water. The viz wasn't too accommodating (we had to dive at least half way down to see the bottom), but I decided to jump in anyway to check it out since we had made the trip. Good thing too, because after a few dives I had 3 fish (in my shorts) and I was encouraging the guys to jump in for more. It looks like the mangroves are finally spawning because this school hung around the reef long enough for us to catch our limit. We finished off the day with a trip to Sombrero reef followed by a trip to the sand bar for a few drinks with friends before heading back to do all the dirty work. Nobody seemed to be in the mood to cook this night, so it ended up being a limited menu of blackened mackerel appetizer and fried mangrove snapper with salad. A simple but effective menu. Hey, nobody went to bed hungry.

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