July 6, 2023 - Key Largo Offshore - PB 25# Mahi I wasn't really prepared to do or record this when it happened, but while offshore doing some Mahi fishing off of Key Largo in July '23, we had a bull mahi that would not leave and would not take a bait...
mylar balloons, the conversation turned to things that we've see on crossings. Everyone was mentioning how they had seen dolphins and other types of mammals as well as a number of other interesting sights. With my having the least experience in making...
immediately started talks about how to best take advantage of the time and we decide we will take the bay boat out for some dolphin and then work some spots on the way back home. So we head out early and this morning with a somewhat unique...
"Boys Weekend" as all the girls and kids decided to stay home and we were hoping to get out for some offshore trolling for dolphin and maybe even get a chance to jump in and shoot a couple. So we woke up bright and early Saturday morning to see who else...
seas were supposed to pick up on Sunday so we put in the big boat Saturday night in preparation to try for a run at some dolphin (Mahi, not flipper) the next morning. Unfortunately, the seas were much worse than forecast, as we were in 6-8' seas in only...
couldn't stay bad for yet another week. So we decide to forego the diving Saturday morning and head offshore for some dolphin fishing. We figured if we ran into some decent numbers, we could jump in the water out there and shoot some as well as hook and...
The winds called for were minimal so the plan was to head offshore in the bay boat and see if we could pick up some dolphin. My brother in law and some friends that had stayed the week had some success so we were hopeful we would at least be able to...
for us since we were getting there so late. I still had to chip in and cook my famous (at the campground anyway) blackened dolphin but dinner was great even in spite of the carrier class mosquitoes that kept trying to carry us off into the night (a...
feet Winds: 5-15 S/SW Viz: 45 feet Temp: 83 F This past weekend the forecast was once again looking abysmal. The campground dolphin fishing tournament was even postponed because the outlook was not very good at all. The forecast was calling for 2-4'...
are not without their (frequent) fallacies. What we awoke to Saturday morning (very early because we had decided to go dolphin fishing again) was more akin to Sunday's forecast (and then some). Yes, there were no mosquitoes, but that was mostly because...
all fishermen). We heard from every rod-n-reeler in the park about how they had gone out that morning and everyone had hit dolphin inside 20 miles. As the sun started to dip, our veritable caravan of boats made way back to the campground to make plans...
for interesting sights and would slow down or stop so us tourists could get shots of everything from whales to a pod of dolphins speeding along side of the boat. He had expressed some concern about finding fish since the summer had been less than...
end of the trip we had very little fish to show for our efforts. So little fish that I actually had to defrost some frozen dolphin to make sure there would be enough for everyone that night as at least 5 families were going to be feasting. Luckily for...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2010
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Gallery Spotlight
March 4, 2023 - What a great day for a bucket list fish!
My throw flasher was working overtime this day! Got to check a fish off my bucket list with a 25# African Pompano.
I realized recently that I had overlooked the fact that I had purchased and used some new SpearGear at the beginning of the Summer of 2011 and hadn't gotten around to posting about it (here or in SpearGear). This article is going to be one that definitely crosses over between SpearViews and SpearGear because of the fact that I do own it but I definitely think it's worthy of a review as well. In the end, SpearViews won the coin toss deciding where I would put the article (especially after I...
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...
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...
Throughout my relatively short history in spearfishing (as of this writing), I have only used a few different spearguns. Now obviously, my opinion in this matter is not one of extreme trial and error. Mostly it consists of recommendations made to me by those I spearfish with along with some of my own common sense. In the beginning (early 1990's), I used one of my brother-in-law's extra guns. Specifically, a 38" Arbalette. Now this gun had already seen finer days by the time I started using it....
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.
Wind Seas Viz Temp NW 5-10mph 1-2' 20-25' 75F The winds had been incessant all through April and as May came around there was no end in sight. Throughout the month, everyone was landlocked and cabin fever was setting in with the fishermen I knew (and liquor stores were running low). So as the forecast for Memorial Day kept looking so good, there were 3 factions: 1) those that didn't believe it (Memorial Day historically has bad weather), 2) those that would sell their Grandmothers to get out...
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...
I got an email from my brother in law and at first reading, I wasn't really sure why he sent it to me or why I should pay extra attention to it. The email had a link to an article on the FWC site about a Pompano and African Pompano video workshop that the FWC was scheduling. We don't get a lot of Permit family fish because they are protected in state waters and we don't do a lot of federal water spearfishing, so at first glance I thought, "Who cares..."
Seas: 4-6 feet Winds: 15-20 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 25-50 feet After a week of East winds (and the wind was still blowing), the clean water finally got pushed far enough West so we could try to hit some of our spots in that general direction. We headed out with 5 divers that morning hoping to find that clean water we had heard about from other fishermen and we weren't disappointed. The clarity was absolutely amazing in many of our spots from 25-35 feet deep. Unfortunately, the numbers of fish...
Winds: 5-10 West Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: 83 F Viz: 10-20 feet Another day of picture perfect weather that doesn't provide perfect conditions. It takes so much longer to clear up the after effects of some bad weather. We have only been able to dive with visibility in our shallower spots (15-20 ft). Luckily, we were able to shoot up some decent size mangoes in a shallow patch reef. After that, we got a little excited and thought that some of our deeper patch reefs might have cleared up....
Winds: 5-10 variable (except for Monday) Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 85F Viz: 15-25 feet Definitely better than our typical Memorial Day weekend weather. While Memorial Day is usually a pretty rainy weekend, this year the rainfall was confined to inland showers, and left us pretty much alone. The viz wasn't what we would have liked, but at least the weather was agreeable.