April 19, 2024 - Shooting and landing a pair of African Pompanos (in 10 minutes or less) - Spearfishing Key Largo This Spring day in April started out slow but ended up being one of my best days when I happened across this pair of African Pompanos in...
a bull mahi that would not leave and would not take a bait no matter what we did. Since we never leave home without our spearfishing gear, I suited up and what happened next was.... well, that's why you watch the video.
Key Largo Cubera - PB 17# Making up for some lost time with a video of the day I shot my personal best 17lb Cubera Snapper in Key Largo back in September 2020.
of the quickest landing of a #50 black grouper I've ever had. Proof that it only takes one fish to make the spearinglife spearfishing trip! Thanks to the pirate crew for making every year an adventure!
Another long overdue edit, but what can I say? Life continues to get in the way of my hobbies... Check out the blog. {igallery id=6727|cid=22|pid=11|type=category|children=0|addlinks=1|tags=2017, bahamas, pirate trips, grand cay|limit=1}
Finally got around to editing the footage from our first trip to Grand Cay back in 2016. It really sucks when what you have to do gets in the way of what you truly want to do. Who knows, this might lead to my getting around to editing all of last...
So for the third year in a row, we begin to plan our annual guys spearfishing trip to the Bahamas in April via What's App. The group is put together and the messages start to fly with talk about the great trip we had last year and how everyone can't...
One of the few usable clips from our outing for the opening of the Atlantic Grouper season 2017. Definitely demonstrates why you should always be checking your surroundings. Enjoy! Check out the blog. {igallery...
A quick video from the end of a spearfishing afternoon when we visited the Neptune Memorial Reef off Key Biscayne, FL. Not the greatest viz, but still a pretty cool sight. You can get more info here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune_Memorial_Reef...
to take an overdue day off from work. Been waiting for this since October! Not really expecting much in the way of spearfishing, but sooo much better than being at work! Check out the blog
to take an overdue day off from work. Been waiting for this since October! Not really expecting much in the way of spearfishing, but sooo much better than being at work! Check out the blog
to take an overdue day off from work. Been waiting for this since October! Not really expecting much in the way of spearfishing, but sooo much better than being at work! Check out the blog
since we got to the island, no matter how much I may argue to the contrary. Don't get me wrong, I do love diving and spearfishing but no matter what my wife may tell you, I am capable of having a good time without doing my favorite hobby (I'm just...
I guess it all started about 4 weeks before when I get the call from my most adventurous spearfishing bud Carlos, asking if I was up for a 5 diver, 4 day trip to Andros in the Bahamas. Being the expert that I am on the Bahamian islands, I immediately...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 10-25 ENE/Variable 3-4' 5-15' 78F In South Florida, probably one of the most anticipated and planned spearfishing outings (aside from those that take you to major global destinations) is the trip we make on or about May 1 of each...
For the past 20+ years my family and I have been heading down to Marathon during the Summer months for the purposes of spearfishing and family weekends. Over the past 15+ years since owning my web site, these Summers have offered me the opportunity to...
grabbed hold of me from that moment. I've never had the opportunity to head over to Bimini with the sole intention of spearfishing for the day with no other distractions. A vacation in Cat Cay a few years ago afforded me my first trip to the Bimini...
April 19, 2024 - Shooting and landing a pair of African Pompanos (in 10 minutes or less) - Spearfishing Key Largo
This Spring day in April started out slow but ended up being one of my best days when I happened across this pair of African Pompanos in uncharacteristically shallow water. This video is practically unedited as the title suggests. Spring time is definitely THE time for AP's in the upper keys.
April 19, 2024 - Shooting and landing a pair of African Pompanos (in 10 minutes or less) - Spearfishing Key Largo
This Spring day in April started out slow but ended up being one of my best days when I happened across this pair of African Pompanos in uncharacteristically shallow water. This video is practically unedited as the title suggests. Spring time is definitely THE time for AP's in the upper keys.
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.
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....
I finally bit the bullet and decided to sell my No-Ka-Oi. It had gotten next to no use in the time I had owned it and it seemed a shame to have it just sit there so I Ebay'd it. With the funds from that sale, I invested in a gun that is a little more multi-purpose (at least that is how I convinced myself to get it :). I was extremely torn among 3 choices. I was considering the Euro 120, 120x and 130. After a couple of weeks of deliberation and a lot of flip-flopping, I decided on the Euro 120....
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....
{sigplus link=oculusr5 index=1} {/sigplus}Hot on the heels of my review of the GoPro Hero2, I felt I would be remiss if I didn't follow up with a review of the case that resolves the one (and only one in my opinion) flaw in the Hero2 design, it's underwater focus (or lack thereof) flaw. You see, as I wrote about in the Hero2 review the curved lens on the stock case creates a focus fallacy when shooting underwater. It's fairly common knowledge now, so if you want to read about it, you can check...
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...
Winds were 2-5 out of the East. Seas were for all intents and purposes flat. Unfortunately, in the area of Marathon and Big Pine Keys, the water was extremely dirty. Actually, it looked to me like an algae bloom. The temperatures have been inordinately high lately and with a little bit of rain, these things can happen. In depths as shallow as 25 feet, the bottom was nearly unidentifiable. You could still spearfish, you just had to use a lot more bottom time just in the hunt. You also had to...
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....
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..."
Wind Seas Viz Temp 5-15mph SSE 2-3 SE Swell 40-50' 86F The past couple of weekends were plagued with algea blooms and low viz thanks to the higher surf temps and a West wind that always seems to wreak havoc for us. But right around Wednesday of this week, 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...
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...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 10-25 ENE/Variable 3-4' 5-15' 78F In South Florida, probably one of the most anticipated and planned spearfishing outings (aside from those that take you to major global destinations) is the trip we make on or about May 1 of each year for the re-opening of Grouper season. It doesn't always fall on a weekend but when it does (like this year), the planning begins early. The season closure has barely taken effect on January 1, and we already start talking about how many grouper...