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...
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....
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....
Back in March of 2010 I enrolled in and completed the FII Level One freediving course . I was extremely happy with the course content and the outcome (check out the SpearView ). Unfortunately for me, I'm not a professional freediver, so as with many people, life gets in the way and complicated which in turn keeps you from building a true regimen that reinforces all the good behavior learned in the course. Needless to say, I forgot some of the basics, fell back into many of my old bad habits...
The summer had been busier than I would have liked this year and I honestly hadn't had as many opportunities to post much less given much thought to writing a new SpearView, but after having time to really reconsider, I realized that I had actually had multiple opportunities to try out new equipment this year (not all of it successfully). Further to that point, when I took the PFI Freediver course back in March I had decided to invest in a new mask and ended up deciding on the Omer Zero Cubed...
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...
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.
Winds: 15-20 SouthWest Seas: 5-6 feet Surf Temp: 84 F Viz: 20-25 feet This year's mini season was a little different for us since we went down to the keys to find our bugs. We usually stay close to home to go bug hunting for these two days, but the last couple of years had been a little more than disappointing so we decided to shake it up a little. We did end up bagging our limit, but with the limit in Monroe county being half of the Dade limit, it sure didn't add up to much! We didn't worry...
Winds: 5-10 variable Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 73F Viz: 15-25 feet The viz was actually better than we had hoped for, but the water was pretty chilly. The moon was also wreaking havoc with the tides. Fortunately for us, it was the good kind of havoc. We jumped in expecting to have missed slack tide altogether and were able to dive for another 1 1/2 hours. Unfortunately, we had to cut our dive short not due to the tides, but due to a little run in with a couple of the locals I'm always...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 5-10 WSW 1-2' 15' 88F This past weekend the weather was still beautiful (beautifully HOT) as it has been for weeks now with mild winds and calm seas. But this week we were met with green, dirty water in almost every direction. In looking back at the weather, one thing had changed over 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...
Winds: 5-10 SE Seas: 1-2ft Surf Temp: 85F Viz: 15-20 feet This weekend required a little patience. The viz would start out at about 5-10 feet until well after high tide had rolled in. Once the tide slacked off and you gave it a little time, the viz would more than double. We tried a couple of our offshore patch reef spots, but the mangroves haven't started to move offshore to spawn yet. Give it a couple of weeks and we should be pushing them off with a stick (preferrably a sharp pointy metal...
Winds: 0-5 Seas: Less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 87F (about 15f colder in the thermalcline) Viz: Varying from 6-25 feet Well, it's happened again... I went diving for lobster during mini season in Miami and have lost about 95% of my hearing in my right ear. Let's see how long it lasts this time (last time in 1999 it lasted about 2 weeks). I definitely won't be going out this weekend, so I guess its a honeydew weekend (Honey, do this, Honey do that :). I hope anyone that gets to go out bags their...
Winds: 20-30 Variable Seas: 3-5 Surf Temp: Like I went in the water... Viz: Unknown, but most likely nil Well, thanks to our first official tropical depression (later to become Tropical Storm Alberto) of the 2006 hurricane season, we did not have much fun at all this weekend. The weather was miserable to say the least. The tropical depression was sitting just below and to the west of us and kept pounding us with winds and cyclical rain (almost like bands in a tropical storm). All was not lost...