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Black grouper
The Atlantic Grouper season will close in:

Sat12May2007

May 11-12, 2007

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May 12, 2007 | Print

 

Unfortunately, the other downside we experienced was that our spots in the viz range of depth, were not too full of life. So we ended up moving a little closer to land and hitting some of our spots in a little less water. And while we were able to find life there, we definitely had to work for it. The current was boiling except for that 15 minute lull during slack, which really wasn't enough to catch our breath.

All in all, we ended up having a good day, albeit a little tired at the end. The groupers seem to be happy in shallower water for now (at least until the water warms up past 80F), and the snappers are right where they should be when they aren't spawning. Lots of good structure and good size holes have proven to be our best ally as usual.

The other inhabitant that also seems to be right where we left them last summer is the Goliaths. Although we haven't run into the behemoths from last summer yet, we are finding them inhabiting most of our good grouper holes.

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Bob Diaz - Sunday, 28 March 2010 18:32

Over the weekend of March 27 th & 28 th I took the Level 1 Freediving course offered by FII (Freediving Instructors International) at their Headquarters in Pompano Beach FL. FII was started by Martin Stepanek, a multiple time freediving world record holder. The Level 1 curriculum is taught over a 2 day course. The first day is classroom and pool based and spans almost 9 hours. This course is designed for beginning freedivers and is supposed to get novice divers to a depth of 66 feet.

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Bob Diaz - Monday, 09 June 2014 16:50

Over the winter I looked into and purchased a couple of sets of Reef Runner Gear's fin skins. I had contemplated having my own manufactured but when I came accross these, it just didn't seem worth the hassle. You can create your own custom design for a few bucks more and although you can run into some small snags when doing so (I'll elaborate later on), Jon from Reef Runner Gear is an awesome guy to work with and he will do everything he can to make things right.

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Bob Diaz - Thursday, 20 April 2017 01:50

This review is actually long overdue as I've had this mask for well over a year now and I honestly don't know why I hadn't done it before now. After trying multiple masks over several years (and several hundred dollars), some were good (Mystic, Star, Nano), and some were bad (Zero Cubed). Before this, I had actually decided upon the Cressi Nano as "the one". I thoroughly enjoyed the fit and volume of the Nano, but there were a couple of VERY minor issues with the fit. I'm convinced that the...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Tuesday, 06 May 2014 02:55

After trying and being disappointed by the Omer Zero Cubed mask last year, I picked up a couple of other masks ( Mares Star and Sporasub Mystic ) that fit fairly well and did not disappoint, but were not the perfect fit I've been looking for in a low volume freediving mask so I didn't feel overly compelled to write a spearview about them. In defense of these masks, they are both low volume masks that are relatively inexpensive so for the money they are great purchases. Of these two, the...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Thursday, 11 February 2010 20:57

Believe it or not my latest addition to my spearguns is not one for shooting fish (well at least not shooting to kill them). But it hopefully will help others watch online what I love to do underwater. I have made a camera mount for my Riffe Euro guns. This mount will fit on any Euro that has the reel inserts (basically all of them). It was terribly simple to make. The only fairly tricky part was putting together the actual mount screw for the camera tripod mount itself.

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Bob Diaz - Monday, 26 July 2010 15:11

This year at The Blue Wild I was fortunate enough to meet Mike Hickey. I know of Mike from his appearances on Speargun Hunter on the Outdoor Channel with Sheri Daye. Mike was orginally a guest on the show and in later seasons participated as an underwater videographer. Mike is the USA distributor for FreeDivers ( FreeDivers USA ) spearfishing equipment. I came across his booth and after a great conversation about spearfishing, we started discussing the rising cost of spearshafts specifically....

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SpearBlog 2006

Bob Diaz - Monday, 26 June 2006 15:11

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...

SpearBlog 2017

- Monday, 31 December 1979 19:00

Wind Seas Viz Temp E-SE 18-24mph 4-6' 5-15' 79F The excitement for grouper opening started a few weeks ago when my brother in law and I started discussing our plans. There was talk of scouting on Sunday and taking Monday through Wednesday off to maximize our time on the water. We would connect with our friends Lazaro and Chris and we were hopeful that we would have a good opening like last year. As usual, we talked timing, accommodations and weather forecasts. After talking about it for about...

SpearBlog 2005

Bob Diaz - Monday, 13 June 2005 15:04

Winds: 15-25 East Seas: 2-4 Surf Temp: 82F Viz: 10-20 feet The weather just did not want to cooperate this weekend at all. Tropical Storm Arlene was wreaking havoc in the Gulf and we were feeling the peripheral effects in the keys as well. We dove in spite of the weather, but weren't able to take anywhere near our regular catch.

SpearBlog 2005

Bob Diaz - Monday, 20 June 2005 15:04

Winds: 5-15 West Seas: 2-4 Surf Temp: 81F Viz: 20-35 feet This weekend the winds finally laid down although not as much as the fishing report promise. The seas were still a little rough, but the viz finally opened up so we could chase some fish. The water was a little cold in depths over 25 feet, but very tolerable. Especially in light of the viz we were getting. The mangoes still haven't started to spawn offshore in droves, but they are starting to do so in smaller numbers. We were able to...

SpearBlog 2005

Bob Diaz - Monday, 05 September 2005 15:07

Winds: 0-5 Seas: Less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 87F Viz: 20-25 feet Considering we had a hurricane pass through the area within the past 7 days, the water was not too bad. Viz was a solid 20-25 feet in most of the areas we dive. The fish were there, but nothing in the monster range. We had a solid day of shooting mangoes. The water was extremely flat so even my kid got to swim along with his old man while the rest of the family was on the boat. As my son gets older, I only hope he takes a healthy...

SpearBlog 2011

Bob Diaz - Monday, 01 August 2011 16:28

Seas: 6-8 feet (Sat) 2-4 feet (Sun) Winds: 15-25 S/SE 10-15 E/SE Viz: 40 feet Temp: 84 F This was almost my second week without an update, but a very interesting thing happened this past week. I found out I have a fan (and no, not a facebook fan)! Don't worry, I won't let the celebrity of it all go to my head and anywhere you want to put my Internet Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will do (maybe somewhere between the Dancing Baby and iCarly :). Not wanting to disappoint my now growing...