acclimated to the water , the reef and the company while I followed the others around for a while. They bagged a 20" hogfish and a 23" Mangrove after which we moved on. We made a stop by Whistle Buoy in about 65 feet at which point they told me to gear...
before heading out around noon. The winds had laid down just a bit so we stayed closer to home looking for lobster and hogfish because we had friends coming over for dinner. So today was more of a meal hunt than a trophy hunt. We did limit out on...
we headed out in the afternoon to look for some other species that might complement our catch (specifically Grouper and Hogfish). We caught the afternoon low tide and started drifting some ledges for a while. We were able to round out the catch a little...
down to inspect the open areas to see if anything was sitting out in the open. I was only able to observe a decent size hogfish hovering by the ledge, but decided to leave it alone since my target really was a grouper. I descended to the ledge with the...
for high slack tide. Our goal was to hit some offshore spots for snapper and hopefully head back closer to home for some hogfish and hopefully grouper. Unfortunately, I am sure we are all familiar with the best laid plans of mice and men and what...
couple of spots with a little better clarity than we had for the past couple of days. I was able to shoot a few nice sized hogfish and a couple of decent mangroves too. At one point we were in an area that is particularly shallow which we know is...
(at least at first). We hit 3 or 4 different areas during that couple of hours and only ended up with a few snappers, hogfish and mackerel to show for it. The last shallow spot we ended up in had us running into 3 bull sharks. Luckily we didn't have any...
and head out afterwards. After waiting the storm out, we decided to stay closer to home and try to hit high slack for some hogfish and (hopefully) grouper. We were able to hit a couple of spots before the tide switched and already had some hog and...
so we jumped in and got underway. We swam along for a while passing over a large number of lega but small mangroves and hogfish. Pretty much all the grouper we saw were juveniles and well under size, but there were a number of them too. After about 30...
old college try, I decided to move on to another spot as the tide was still just trickling in. The second spot yielded more hogfish with at least a couple of a nicer size and one (yes, one) lobster. I found it hard to believe that I had only found one...
one is in the back row of the pic for this week). We always have to catch a few hogs for dinner because pan-fried whole hogfish filet has become the new favorite item on Chez Bobby's menu among the women in our group, but I digress. So we head out to...
cleaner (besides, I prefer fishing high tides anyway). The one fish there seems to be an ample supply of this summer is the hogfish. Only a few of really considerable size, but tons of legals. We try to be as picky as we can given the supply and only...
with some good size cracks for hiding, but to no avail. There were no fish here with the exception of a couple of legal hogfish that we did end up taking and one nice size cero mackerel that I couldn't get a shot off on. We moved on and continued to...
yet, but it looked promising. We ended up swimming around for over an hour and I only took 2 shots. I hit on both, one a hogfish and the other the grouper in this week's picture. After that we kept looking for a while and finally ended up moving on. I...
at the spot with our catch! We stopped at 3 other locations on the way in looking for other quarry (grouper, mutton and hogfish) and were able to bag a few hogs for dinner too! We made a second trip out later that afternoon to look for more grouper and...
Sunday was a beautiful day of both diving and spearfishing. We were able to not only bag our limit on the mangoes, but on Hogfish too! We haven't had an opportunity to do that much lately. It's nice when you just get to enjoy the scenery and shoot stuff!
{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.
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...
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....
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....
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...
{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...
Seas: 2-4' Winds: 10-20 ESE Viz: 45-50' Temp: 81F So we head down this weekend without too much in the expectation department since it had been raining with 20-40 mph winds almost incessantly the entire week. While at work on Thursday, I take a quick glance at the forecast to see there was still a small craft advisory in effect and a call for 2-4' seas on Sat increasing to 3-5 on Sunday. Heading home from work Friday in what seemed like my umpteenth torrential downpour this week, I'm not too...
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...
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...
Winds: 5 west Seas: less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 79F Viz: 35 feet Thank goodness that weathermen (or weatherpersons, don't want to be sexist) don't know shit from shine! The weather reports for this weekend would have had you believe that it wasn't even worth going out this weekend, but this was one of the nicest calmest days, in recent weeks. As we headed out the flag on the campground pole was barely flapping so we hauled ourselves out to some of our favorite closer spots and jumped right in.
Well, the FWC met for 2 days on June 8th and 9th, 2011 and not only had a changing of the guard with a new chairman and vice chairman, but made quite a few other decisions. Most importantly for Florida spearos and fishermen are the changes in the Permit, Florida and African Pompano bag, size and gear limitations. You might need to take your Captain's course to be able to identify the new Special Permit Zones (SPZ's) that they have apparently approved wherein anglers (both rod/reel and spear)...
UPDATE: An article related to my story below was published in the April 2007 issue of Florida Sportsman. I post it here for the sake of any nay-sayers or persons who may be thinking that some of my descriptions or even the existence of Big Mo may be exaggerated or even fictitious. I invite you to read my story below and then enjoy the article as well. This story is true, and while actually pertaining more closely to my brother-in-law, is one that I was in the water for and probably closer to...