a specific incident this past weekend wherein I thought for sure I would have to replace the shaft. After shooting a red grouper inside a brain coral, the fish made a bee line for a nook inside the rock where I had no leverage to extract it. After...
humidity while we were battling 15-20mph winds and 5-6' seas. We did utlimately manage to catch some mangroves and a red grouper so at least there would be some fish for the freezer. We arrive back at the campground, shortly after which every floating...
the ensuing white caps gave us signs that the day was pretty much done for us. When all was said and done, there was a red grouper and a hogfish in the cooler. Not exactly what you would call a bountiful trip. So we headed back home to spark up the...
pretty satisfied considering it had only taken us about 3 1/2 hours to close out. The tally for the day did include one red grouper that my brother in law shot. So far this summer, there has really been a grouper drought for us. I don't know if it's the...
on this spot swimming over the reef to see if we can find the school again or if we can find any alternative quarry as the grouper has continued to be extremely elusive this summer. After some of the other divers land a few more fish, we decide to head...
in law and kept encouraged by the viz on the bottom. On one drop I actually saw a cloud of dust that is very typical of a grouper taking off scared so I persevered. Unfortunately, my labor was unproductive as I wasn't able to spot any other fish that...
make dinner. So when all was said and done, we ended up with our limit in mangoes, a few Cero's and a mutton. I did chase a grouper, but unfortunately she was a second sighting while I was chasing a mangrove and having to surface with less viz than...
we figured we should go a little further offshore and hit some deeper water since we really hadn't been running into any grouper at all and thought maybe we would find some in greater depths. My brother in law spotted some very nice bottom in what our...
up of 2 brain corals that butt up against each other with one having a large cavity underneath that can and has held large grouper for us. By the time I spot the corals, the current has picked up the pace and it was getting considerably harder to hold...
some ledges that we hadn't dove on in 1-2 years. We had passed by these ledges the weekend before, and saw some snapper and grouper, but we had missed the tide, so we couldn't dive. We decided to come back first chance we had the following weekend. We...
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...
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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...
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.
{sigplus link=goprohero2 index=1} {/sigplus}I finally jumped on the HD bandwagon and bought myself a Hero2 HD digital camera by GoPro. These little beauties have been around for quite a while now so hearing about them isn't exactly news. But since I finally got around to purchasing one for myself and it happens to be that the Hero2 is the biggest leap in performance that they've given these cameras since their launch, I figured I would put in my 2 cents worth.
Winds: 10-15 E Seas: 2-4 feet (sloppy) Surf Temp: +/- 80F Viz: 15-50 feet (depending on location) We decided to play the tide game today and actually won! The last couple of weeks we were either busting our humps because we got to our spots too early (running into strong tides), or missed the boat altogether and still end up busting our humps in order to catch some fish in spite of missing the slack tide (this of course precludes the fact that we would still run offshore to some of our patch...
Winds: 20-25 east (Sat)/5-10 east (Sun) Seas: 3-5 feet (Sat) / 1-2 feet (Sun) Surf Temp: 78F Viz: 10-15 feet (inshore) / 40+ feet (offshore) Unfortunately, this was another weekend without the advent of pictures of fish. The problem we run into is that the best day of the past few weekends has been Sunday and in efforts to take full advantage, we end up rushing to clean fish and just don't have time to stop and take pics. We didn't really slaughter them this weekend, but we did have some...
Seas: 1-3' Winds: 10-15 ESE Viz: 45'+ Temp: 82F In spite of the lack of a blog for last week, it was actually a good hunting weekend as we found big mangroves on the patch reefs for the first time this Summer. In fact, I shot what was probably one of my biggest mangroves yet, weighing in that 6-7lb class. I didn't think it merited a blog though, since I got it on a make up shot because my brother in law had missed it and we wanted to make sure it didn't hightail it out of the staghorn before...
Seas: 3-7 feet Winds: 20-25 E/SE Viz: 25 feet Temp: 81 F There really isn't much to write about this weekend as it was yet another weekend spent holding or weighing down everything from the tablecloth to your plate once you had eaten more than half the food on it. As for the forecast this weekend, I'm not going to split hairs with the meteorologists. They forecast 15-20 E/SE and I'm reasonably sure the wind was considerably stronger than that (I honestly believe 20-25mph with frequent 30mph...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 S Temp: 88 F Viz: 10-15 feet My advance apologies for the brevity of this week's blog. Just not in a very literary mood this week, I guess. Luckily, it was a short weekend due to the fact that Father's Day was Sunday and I tried to head back home early to spend it with mine. Unfortunately, some people who are apparently guaranteed employment at the public works in Monroe County decided it would be a good idea to close down northbound US1 on the 18 mile stretch from...
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...