tree that were blown into the boat that night. You may not be like me, but if you are the work that goes into keeping a boat clean is considerable and jumping on my boat to find this was upsetting, so I proceeded to spend the next hour trying to...
way out on Saturday. Maybe I should be more negative more often... Saturday finds us heading East in search of mangroves and clean water. We get to one of our spots and at first the water looks deceptively clean from the boat as we peer into it. We see...
for the remainder of the day. After spending much of the morning watching everyone else give up and either take out and clean their boats or depart completely, I finally get the whole family up and going and start heading out around 12:30. With the tide...
of some advice given us by our offshore fishing friends that had actually gone out earlier. We were told that we could find clean water out at the reef with reports of 30+ feet of viz from the boat as they passed the reef on the way out and back from...
(a decision whose forward-thinking we would all have a much greater appreciation later in the day). We head out in search of clean water and no other particular destination in mind. As we head out we decide to check out Hawk Channel which follows the...
hadn't toggled through-and-through. It was starting to get near dusk so we headed home because we had a crapload of fish to clean and we hadn't even planned dinner yet. While cleaning fish well into the evening, I got a call from work that turns out to...
much dirtier than the low tide (actually a lot dirtier). We haven't been able to figure out why the low tide has been so clean lately since the outgoing tide from the Gulf usually brings out all the murky brackish water of the back country and the...
a little later. Starting Saturday, things actually didn't look that bad as we headed out in the afternoon and found somewhat clean water out to the East. We were actually able to dive water as deep as 50+ feet. We were able to dive some spots I hadn't...
quick count told me there were at least 5 or 6 of these invasive nuisances on this spot so I decided to take the time out to clean house to see if some of our more regular residents would come back home after evicting these unwelcomed guests. So down I...
as is the case anywhere you go and anytime of the year, but this year the wind hasn't let up long enough to allow the viz to clean up substantially at all. The problem we face is that even if the water happens to clean up, we have to endure 4-6' seas in...
of doom, but being my usual determined (stubborn) self, I kept on keeping on regardless. After getting the truck unstuck and cleaning it off, we decided to get underway. The seas looked horrible, but we figured we would make at least one attempt to get...
really hasn't been my summer where grouper are concerned. In the afternoon, we headed out to the patch reefs in search of clean water. We first head out just West of the lighthouse to see if we can better our chances of finding this that has eluded us...
range which made for some building seas. Some old friends showed up for the day so we loaded up and headed out to look for clean water and see if we couldn't feed them some keys fresh fish later that day. We headed out full of vim and vigor and hopeful...
way back then. But things only seemed to get more complicated and weekend after weekend went by with nary a fish on the cleaning table. By that time I'm thinking "No problem", I'll surely get to go shooting once grouper opens on the first of May (Double...
and went and almost everybody packed up and went home on Sunday, much to our delight. We were hopeful that the water would clean up and the winds would lay down so we could make up for lost time while everybody else was gone this week. We were able to...
is now only 1 Black/Gag per person (and we weren't targeting Red Grouper in this depth) and a few Snapper but the water was clean and we figured this was our last stop on this whirlwind tour before heading home so we were really just hoping to fill the...
of the water beyond the South end of Cat Cay. The water I dove here was anywhere from 10 to 30 feet deep and a little less clean due to the constant wave action against the nearby rocks. There I saw a legal Black Grouper as well as a Mutton snapper that...
the side of the boat that are bigger than those they were catching on hook-n-line :). So we keep heading West chasing fish, clean water and open spaces with limited success. We hit a couple of spots with big numbers of snappers, but not very many were...
the winds 10-20 from SSE. The water clarity seemed pretty good as we came out of Hawk's Channel, what we typically call a "Clean Green". Even in 25-30' we could see the bottom but we couldn't see the thermocline that was lying in the bottom 4-5' of...
made the blunder in our favor.. advantage Team Breathtaking! As we head out deciding which cardinal to take in search of clean water because it's so late, we notice the radio is all a-chatter with tons of johnny-come-lately fisherman (a group we are...
Pirate Trip 2022 - Great Harbour, Chub and North Bimini
Another overdue cut from our 2022 Spearinglife Pirate Trip to Great Harbour. We ended up visiting multiple locations, like Chub, the Gingerbreads and North Bimini, but as usual, the trip was epic! Another year where I'm the only one with a camera, but like I tell my fellow pirates... I do what I can! Hoping to publish an extended version with some fun we had back at the rental with a big Lemon shark and a useless Sharkbanz shark repellant, but this cut will have to hold us over until then. Keep living life on a single breath!
Pirate Trip 2022 - Great Harbour, Chub and North Bimini
Another overdue cut from our 2022 Spearinglife Pirate Trip to Great Harbour. We ended up visiting multiple locations, like Chub, the Gingerbreads and North Bimini, but as usual, the trip was epic! Another year where I'm the only one with a camera, but like I tell my fellow pirates... I do what I can! Hoping to publish an extended version with some fun we had back at the rental with a big Lemon shark and a useless Sharkbanz shark repellant, but this cut will have to hold us over until then. Keep living life on a single breath!
A short vid from our Summer 2019 Bahamas Pirate Trip 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!
The Summer of 2025 had been especially slow from a spearfishing perspective for me. I will typically be gifted with at least one mentionable fish from my spearfishing ventures each Summer in Key Largo. This year, I was really starting to give up hope on my perennial "mentionable" fish. Luckily for me, perseverance can pay off and on a lazy Sunday morning when I almost decided to stay on the dock, I got my gift! On my first spot of the day and only the second drop of the day, I was able to land my personal best (in Key Largo) Mutton Snapper, weighing in at almost 14.5 pounds!
A short vid from our Summer 2019 Bahamas Pirate Trip 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!
The Summer of 2025 had been especially slow from a spearfishing perspective for me. I will typically be gifted with at least one mentionable fish from my spearfishing ventures each Summer in Key Largo. This year, I was really starting to give up hope on my perennial "mentionable" fish. Luckily for me, perseverance can pay off and on a lazy Sunday morning when I almost decided to stay on the dock, I got my gift! On my first spot of the day and only the second drop of the day, I was able to land my personal best (in Key Largo) Mutton Snapper, weighing in at almost 14.5 pounds!
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...
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...
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....
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...
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 4th of July holiday I was able to break in my hawaiian sling made by HawaiianSling.net (Ray Uppstrom). I had purchased this quite some time ago in preparation for a trip to the Bahamas and I finally got to try it out in the waters around Cat Cay, South Bimini. This isn't your normal hawaiian sling. The design is completely unique and interesting in its approach compared to traditional slings. This sling is much more akin to a bow and arrow than it is to a regular sling and it looks...
Winds: (Saturday) Variable 15-20, (Sunday) Variable 5-10 Seas: Light chop, 2-4 inside the reef, 5-7 outside the reef Surf Temp: +/- 85F Viz: 10-15 feet At least we were able to salvage Sunday out of this weekend. Saturday afternoon wasn't too bad, but the boat didn't want to cooperate, so we spent most of our afternoon working on it. It rained most of Saturday and well into the night. Sunday, we awoke to clear blue skies and calmer (not calm) seas. We headed out for a morning dive, and came...
The text from my friend Carlos Casal comes in the day after Christmas with two simple words... "Bimini Saturday?" (there may have been more words, but those stood out) and all of a sudden I feel like it's Christmas all over again. That nervous anxiety that comes over you when you know the present you're getting, but you can't open until Christmas morning 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...
Winds: 5-15 South Seas: 3-4 feet Surf Temp: 84 F Viz: 20-35 feet This weekend we finally started to find some cleaner water without having to go too far offshore. For the past few weeks, the real clean water was unfortunately a little deeper than we are accustomed to diving. But over the past week, it seems as though the blue water has moved in a little closer to shore and started to give us a break on viz. We were actually able to spot and follow most of our prey without having to commit to...
Seas: 2-3 feet Winds: 10-15 W/SW Viz: 5-35 feet Temp: 86 F Well, it's the end of yet another Summer of diving and spearfishing. I would say that this one definitely seemed to have come and gone a lot faster than other years in the past. Even though it started out pretty strong this Summer (even without the presence of large groupers), it really seemed to lighten up around mid-July when the water just wouldn't warm up like it usually does and with the added inconvenience of the swarms of...
Winds: 0-5 Seas : Less than 1 foot Surf Temp : 87F Viz: 20-40 feet This was another very nice weekend for diving and spearfishing. The weather has been agreeable for a couple of weeks now, and now that I have some of my hearing returning (about 50%), I feel confident that I can begin to dive again. I didn't push it too hard this weekend, I just dove with my daughter piggyback and dove down a few times to get the feel of it and make sure I could easily equalize again. I was sorry I couldn't...
This story just goes to show that sometimes you get lucky, and you don't even know it until everything has happened. It was late in August, 1999. We were spearfishing a ledge that we visit from time to time. Usually we find a fair amount of grouper there. But we also know that this late in the summer, we sometimes get a little something extra... a shot at some Cubera Snapper. We don't get to see a lot of these during the peak summer months, so we make extra efforts to come here in the later...
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