Feb 8, 2017 - Hump Day Staycation surprise So glad the new hogfish regulations haven't been implemented yet! Hogfish would be closed right now if they had been. Two nice hogs on the very first spot. Check out the blog
Feb 8, 2017 - Hump Day Staycation surprise So glad the new hogfish regulations haven't been implemented yet! Hogfish would be closed right now if they had been. Two nice hogs on the very first spot. Check out the blog
Feb 8, 2017 - Hump Day Staycation surprise So glad the new hogfish regulations haven't been implemented yet! Hogfish would be closed right now if they had been. Two nice hogs on the very first spot. Check out the blog
Feb 8, 2017 - Hump Day Staycation surprise So glad the new hogfish regulations haven't been implemented yet! Hogfish would be closed right now if they had been. Two nice hogs on the very first spot. Check out the blog
I was interested in. Nevertheless, she hung in there with me and we had a pretty good time while I was able to land a few hogfish for some fresh catch-of-the-day. By Friday (Day 4), Carlos is thinking that I'm bored because I haven't been able to...
in essence making it a $400 learning experience. Very soon after Jorge bags the first fish of trip in the way of a nice hogfish and we spend the next 45 minutes landing the rest of our dinner... a yellowfin grouper, a Nassau grouper and a few more hogs....
rest and nourishment and around 3p we decide to head back out to see if we can round out our catch with some snappers and hogfish. Unfortunately, the wind has picked up considerably by the time we get back out and the slop and soup was just too much to...
some of you) tremendously along the way. I have looked forward to my Summer escapades chasing mahi, snapper, grouper, hogfish and facing sharks and goliaths every Spring... that is, up until this year. Life as we all know gets complicated and sometimes...
turned to a couple of small black grouper that are uncommon here. Unfortunately in doing so, I completely overlook a large hogfish feeding in the sand even after my brother in law mentions it to me as he swims up. I dive and land a mangrove, but...
brother in law lands a nice black grouper afterwards as we drifted with the current. We close out the day with our limit of hogfish for dinner and our black grouper limit as well. Sunday after striking out at #113, a spot that was incredibly prolific at...
even if we don't land fish when we get to the next spot. As I make my way around the reef, I see only small mangroves and hogfish that although possibly legal just weren't worth shooting. Sometimes spots with less activity are good because it gives me...
of us wanted to swim back to the boat to grab a tickle stick and a net). We also ended up shooting a few decent sized hogfish at this spot, so we decided to add a new Miami waypoint to our list. To this point, we had pretty much been killing time until...
for a big catch of my very own. This weekend we decided to catch the high slack tide closer in so we could stock up on some hogfish as we hadn't really focused on those much so far and the home freezers were getting a little barren of that particularly...
on the way out and back from fishing. So we put the bay boat in, load up our gear and head out with a plan to pick up some hogfish and then head out to deeper water to see if we can find some clean water like promised us by our above the water-line...
some time until the early afternoon high tide which we wanted to hit closer to the 7 mile bridge for some mangroves and hogfish. This turns out to be a good decision because after only few minutes in the water I spot what seems to be a legal gag grouper...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2013
Results 61 - 80 of 144
Gallery Spotlight
July 18, 2009 - The viz still hasn't returned, so it's taking some work to limit out.
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...
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....
This past weekend, I finally got to go to The Blue Wild dive expo. After 3 years of everybody telling me about it and not being around to get to go to it, the stars finally aligned and I was able to check it out. Unfortunately, it meant missing out on 5-10mph winds and less than 1' seas inside the reef, but there were other reasons I couldn't get out this weekend, so I figured I would take advantage to check it out and possibly win something from the raffle to boot (I won't keep you in...
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...
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.
This past Saturday we decided to take the boat out one last time in Miami before the summer started (and along with it my main diving season in the Keys). My nephew decided to come along with us for his first ride on the boat so I figured we might be able to get in a dive along with another family day at Boca Chita. My nephew had never been to this nice island in the middle of Biscayne Bay (I confess, I hadn't been there before this past winter either) so it was nice to have him experience it...
Winds: 10-15 SSW Seas: 2-3 feet Surf Temp: +/- 82F Viz: 20-25 feet First weekend back and it was both hard work and fun. It took us a little longer than usual to setup this weekend because we went back to our old campground this year and we are on somewhat smaller sites compared to last year. We did prevail however and got all setup with a little time left for a dive on Saturday. We headed out looking for clean water because we knew that we had missed the tide. Things didn't look too promising...
Winds: 8-10 West Seas: 2-4 feet Surf Temp: 83 F Viz: 10-15 feet Today we went to some of our closer spots, due to the lack of visibility at our offshore patch reefs. Visibility was minimal to nil at most locations deeper than 15 feet. To make matters worse, we missed the tide and were only able to shoot fish for about an hour and a half. The entire days catch amounted to 1 grouper and 1 hogfish. I was glad to finally catch a grouper. It seems like Jewfish (Goliath Grouper) have moved in and...
Seas: 4-6 feet Winds: 15-20 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 25-50 feet After a week of East winds (and the wind was still blowing), the clean water finally got pushed far enough West so we could try to hit some of our spots in that general direction. We headed out with 5 divers that morning hoping to find that clean water we had heard about from other fishermen and we weren't disappointed. The clarity was absolutely amazing in many of our spots from 25-35 feet deep. Unfortunately, the numbers of fish...
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...
Seas: 5-8 feet Winds: 20-25 ESE Temp: 78 F Viz: 5 feet We pulled in late Friday night after a brief (who am I kidding?) legal discussion of highway driving with a friendly Monroe County Sheriff's Deputy. According to friends that arrived before us, the winds picked up around 9p. There weren't too many storms, but the winds didn't let up all night. Up before the crack of dawn Saturday morning, we found the conditions had actually deteriorated even more from the night before. High tide was too...