Mon26Jun2006

June 24-25, 2006

Information
Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2006 | June 26, 2006

Winds: 8-10 South
Seas: 2-3 feet
Surf Temp: 82-83 F
Viz: 20-35 feet (variable with the tideline)
This weekend started out pretty nice. The weather was agreeable on Saturday to the tune of mild winds and very tolerable seas.

On Saturday, we were able to head out to some of our offshore patch reefs and shoot up the mangoes with enthusiasm. We hit a couple of our favorite patch reefs and shot about 24 of the beautiful snappers, all in a very respectable size range. However, just as the dive was coming to a close, and just when you think they are thinning out and no big ones are left, my brother-in-law has shot one of the biggest mangroves I have ever seen in the Keys.

We also moved over to one or our shallower spots and fished there for a while. We ran into a few fish, but unfortunately the biggest one we ran into was a 9-10 foot Bull Shark. I happened to be about 5 feet behind my brother-in-law when it came in from our left. He immediately looked around to see if anyone else was present to witness this monster. We made eye (bug-eye) contact underwater and surfaced immediately. Upon breaking the surface of the water, we almost simultaneously made the same statement... "That was a big freakin shark!". Luckily, he didn't seem to be very interested in us and we weren't carrying any dead or bleeding fish at the time so the situation didn't get hairy. But then again, with a Bull Shark that big passing within 10-15 feet of us, we didn't take any chances, and got the heck out of there post-haste.

Sunday on the other hand was not quite as amenable to our efforts. We were subjected to 20-30 mph winds and highly volatile thunderstorms throughout the entire day. We kept waiting for the weather to clear up for us, but we ended up eating steaks...