house, which meant I wouldn't have to worry about taking the boat out of the water today. This always makes for quicker cleanups! We pass Virginia Beach and just as we come under the bridge into Biscayne Bay, I'm greeted by a sight that I wish was my...
That trip back to Rosie's with a cooler full of fish and heads full of stories, never gets old. As usual, we immediately clean enough fish to send to the restaurant for dinner while Carlos and I finish cleaning the day's catch. By the time we complete...
"The ones that got away" stories after missing that Mutton). We dock the boat, unload the cooler and make way to the cleaning station to clean our catch. Along the way, as we pass the marina's watering hole, and where some of their friends were enjoying...
Resort on Deep Creek and are welcomed by George, the proprietor of the establishment. We immediately setup a makeshift cleaning station to clean our catch for dinner where George assures us that everything will be taken care of for our meals. After...
but April had been pretty windy and rough and we were running out of time for the wind and seas to lay down and the water to clean up. Yet we were still hopeful and faithful that the weather gods would be merciful and give us the window we all hoped...
the wind started to turn more Southerly with an occasional Easterly influence so we were hopeful that it would be enough to clean up the water in time for the weekend. We got some conflicting reports about viz from friends, but luckily we noticed that...
the prior week that seems to support a theory I've been fostering for a while now about when and where we're able to find clean water depending on wind direction (hence the "cardinal"), the tide and surf temperature that I have dubbed my "Cardinal"...
not too shabby. After finding relatively dirty water to the West, we decided we would spend Sunday to the East in search of cleaner water and once again, hopefully those spawning mangroves. Our first stop #30 (with nearby 120 and 121). The water is...
the wind that had picked up last weekend and the horrible weather at the opening of the week we pretty much thought that the clean water we had been able to enjoy for the past couple of weeks had come to an end. But being ever the optimist (not me,...
It looked like everyone was having fresh mahi for dinner tonight, and that's exactly what we did (as soon as we finished cleaning all the fish). While cleaning fish, we were talking with a friend of ours that runs the Tunaskin Aquatic Apparel company,...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2014
Results 1 - 20 of 109
Gallery Spotlight
May 1, 2020 - Grouper Opening 2020 - COVID GROUPER
What a great way to start the 2020 Grouper Season with a PB 35# black grouper on the deck! I found this one quarantining underwater!
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...
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.
This past weekend, I finally got to go to The Blue Wild dive expo. After 3 years of everybody telling me about it and not being around to get to go to it, the stars finally aligned and I was able to check it out. Unfortunately, it meant missing out on 5-10mph winds and less than 1' seas inside the reef, but there were other reasons I couldn't get out this weekend, so I figured I would take advantage to check it out and possibly win something from the raffle to boot (I won't keep you in...
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.
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...
It didn't take me long to finish rigging up the 120 with a new reel and 2.2mm dyneema line. Unfortunately as of now (Apr 2009), I haven't had an opportunity to get into the blue water to put this new toy through its paces. I am definitely jones'ing to give it a try! I am also working on making my own flashers for use in blue water. I have been watching these being used on a few spearfishing shows and their reasoning seems sound for their success. They didn't seem too hard to make, so I decided...
Seas: 5-8 feet Winds: 15-24E/SE Viz: 5-10 feet Temp: 83F Well, they say that every cloud has a silver lining, but they always forget to mention how big the cloud may be or how far you need to look to find that so-called lining. Usually, I will be the first to tell people that my worst day spearfishing is still a great day diving but unfortunately this weekend has stretched my belief to the limit.
Well, the FWC met for 2 days on June 8th and 9th, 2011 and not only had a changing of the guard with a new chairman and vice chairman, but made quite a few other decisions. Most importantly for Florida spearos and fishermen are the changes in the Permit, Florida and African Pompano bag, size and gear limitations. You might need to take your Captain's course to be able to identify the new Special Permit Zones (SPZ's) that they have apparently approved wherein anglers (both rod/reel and spear)...
Seas: 2-4 feet Winds: 10-20 SSE Temp: 84 F Viz: 3-50 feet We decided to get in the water for some bugs on opening day since we didn't do mini season last week (actually it was the 2nd year in a row that we don't do it). Little did we know what we were in for that opening day. We headed out early to try and beat some of the spot squatters that wait for day break on the water (because you're not allowed to night dive for lobsters in the keys). We were a little surprised by the lack of boats that...
Winds: 10-12 South Seas: 2-4 feet Surf Temp: 83 F Viz: 10-15 feet Today started out a little slow, but we were rewarded for our continued effortrs by bagging some of our favorite and recently absent quarry, Black Grouper. Not just a Black, but a big Black , at least for this area (34 inches). We haven't bagged a specimen like this for more than a few years (actually, since 2001 ). We actually bagged more grouper today than we have for the past couple of weeks. The big one from above, another...
Seas: 2-5 feet Winds: 15-25 E-NE Viz: 40-50 feet Temp: 78 F Thank you for tuning in for another episode of "As the gripe turns..." I would think this episode needs to start on Tuesday as the winds started to die down and on through Wednesday and Thursday where some rain did roll through and finally Friday where the day saw picture perfect weather with 5-10 knot winds out of the East and 1 foot of chop inside the reef and get this... No small craft advisory for probably only the second or third...
Seas: 1-3 feet Winds: 15-20 SSW Temp: 85-88 F Viz: 10-45 feet This weekend started out with more of the same as the past few weeks as far as the viz went. We dove on Saturday. We were able to limit out, but it took a few spots and a fair amount of work. We just haven't had any luck with the clarity over the past 4 or 5 weeks and it seemed like we were in for more of the same since the wind had actually switched back to a SSW direction. We had been hearing that the temporary switch to the E...