Seas: 0-2 feet Winds: 5-15 S/SW Viz: 45 feet Temp: 83 F This past weekend the forecast was once again looking abysmal. The campground dolphin fishing tournament was even postponed because the outlook was not very good at all. The forecast was calling...
Seas: 1 foot Winds: 5-10 W/SW Viz: 25-40 feet Temp: 83F This past weekend was great and horrible all at the same time. The winds were so calm that there were hardly any seas to speak of but the lack of any wind at all coupled with the extreme heat made...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 10-15 E/SE Viz: 15-25feet Temp: 82F On Friday once again, the winds and seas were cooperative and allowed us to get out for some more long awaited dive time. We stayed out west on Friday because we thought we had our best chances...
there a little before slack tide Saturday morning. We jumped in and started looking for some of our favorite quarry, Mangrove Snapper and Black Grouper. On our first pass, just my brother-in-law and myself jumped in. We saw quite a few grouper as well...
Seas: 2-4 feet (very sloppy) Winds: 15-25 Variable Temp: 86 F Viz: 50-60 feet We arrived Friday night to high winds and stormy skies and were worried that the weekend was getting off to a very rocky start. Unfortunately waking up the next morning to...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 84-87 F Viz: 70-80 feet We headed out Saturday morning with 6 divers on the boat. More than usual for us, but we had a couple of friends visiting in addition to our usual crew. We headed out to see if any fish had...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 30-60 feet When I arrived Fri night we started talking about what we were going to do the next morning and figured that this weekend we would pull split duty. One group would head offshore to go for...
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...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 10 feet Today we headed out with the whole family (families) in tow because the seas have been so calm. We headed out around 10a with a plan to be back close to home in time for high slack tide. Our goal...
to be in the mood to cook this night, so it ended up being a limited menu of blackened mackerel appetizer and fried mangrove snapper with salad. A simple but effective menu. Hey, nobody went to bed hungry.
is that we finally found some decent snappers. At about our 3rd spot, we ran into a school of some very nice sized mangrove snappers. By about 1p, we had our limit in the cooler and were finally happy to get into the mangoes that we have been looking...
Seas: 5-7 feet Winds: 15-20 SE Temp: 74 F Viz: 30-35 feet I decided to make an overnight trip this weekend and take a Monday off for the heck of it. I was hoping to be able to get into some snapper since the forecast had the weekend winds dying down...
Winds: SE 5 Seas: 1-2 ft Surf Temp: 84 F Viz: 40+ ft This weekend was absolutely incredible for diving! As we headed out Saturday morning, we were running over areas that we can never recall being as clear as they were this day. There were times when...
We didn't catch a whole lot, but at least we got back in the water. Just the usual suspects today, black grouper and mangrove snapper. Still, it felt good to get back in the water after the last few weeks. Sun 6/24 Winds: East 5 Seas: 1-2 ft Surf Temp:...
Winds: 8-10 South Seas: 2-3 feet Surf Temp: 82-83 F Viz: 20-35 feet (variable with the tideline) This weekend started out pretty nice. The weather was agreeable on Saturday to the tune of mild winds and very tolerable seas. On Saturday, we were able to...
at least one spot that would let us bring home some meat. Our first stop was The Clumps. This spot typically holds mangrove snapper, and not even typically this early in the Summer, but it was the first area we had been able to make out any shapes on...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2017
Results 21 - 38 of 38
Gallery Spotlight
July 7, 2009 - After a couple of days of putting off cleaning fish we finally ran into some good ones. Unfortunately, one of them was a bull shark.
March 4, 2023 - Key Largo African Pompano - Sailfish visitor
A video from a dive last week in Key Largo where my throw flasher proved to be exceptionally effective, so effective in fact that it brought in a special visitor that I never even saw until I was reviewing the video back at home! Stoked to check a fish off my bucket list with a beautiful 25lb African Pompano!
March 4, 2023 - Key Largo African Pompano - Sailfish visitor
A video from a dive last week in Key Largo where my throw flasher proved to be exceptionally effective, so effective in fact that it brought in a special visitor that I never even saw until I was reviewing the video back at home! Stoked to check a fish off my bucket list with a beautiful 25lb African Pompano!
Believe it or not my latest addition to my spearguns is not one for shooting fish (well at least not shooting to kill them). But it hopefully will help others watch online what I love to do underwater. I have made a camera mount for my Riffe Euro guns. This mount will fit on any Euro that has the reel inserts (basically all of them). It was terribly simple to make. The only fairly tricky part was putting together the actual mount screw for the camera tripod mount itself.
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.
{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...
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...
{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.
Seas: 2-4 feet Winds: 10-15 S/SW Viz: 30 feet Temp: 79 F SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE! Finally a weekend that wasn't under the guise of some kind of work, whether paycheck related or otherwise. Of course it wasn't all honeymoon for me either, at least not at the start. I get a call from a friend Friday afternoon who asks me why we aren't down in the keys shooting fish when we're getting MMS messages from my brother in law with pictures of his 16lb Black Grouper while we're both at work (way to rub...
Seas: 3-4' Winds: 10-20 ESE Viz: 30-40' Temp: 78F It's been a crappy year on many counts. Truth is, before the holidays I thought (or rather, I hoped) that the year of crappy weather, fishing, diving and the breakin/robbery at my house (along with numerous other stupid things going wrong along the way) was the worst of it. Unfortunately I don't think I could have imagined earlier this year how bad things could actually turn, but the unexpected and sudden death of my father in early December...
Winds: SE 5 Seas: 1-2 ft Surf Temp: 84 F Viz: 40+ ft This weekend was absolutely incredible for diving! As we headed out Saturday morning, we were running over areas that we can never recall being as clear as they were this day. There were times when the water actually seemed to sparkle. Driving down Friday night, I noticed the horizon was dotted with the anchor lights of dozens of night fisherman. The general area and proximity led me to believe that they were all bottom fishing for mangroves...
Winds: 15-25 East Seas: 2-4 Surf Temp: 82F Viz: 10-20 feet The weather just did not want to cooperate this weekend at all. Tropical Storm Arlene was wreaking havoc in the Gulf and we were feeling the peripheral effects in the keys as well. We dove in spite of the weather, but weren't able to take anywhere near our regular catch.
Seas: 3-5' Winds: 15-25 SE Viz: 10-15 Temp: 86F This week I was hoping for something a little extra. At the start of this weekend I hadn't shot a grouper yet all summer and I was hoping I would get the first one in spite of the fact that the weather forecast was pretty horrible and I was only going to get to dive Saturday because we had to get back home early this weekend to make it in time for a friend's daughter's birthday. So with little time and an unfavorable forecast, I was going to see...
Winds: 5-10 variable Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 73F Viz: 20-35 feet We decided to get an early start this year, and the weather shaped up for a few days so we went out on Saturday. We only went down for the day, but it turned out to be a good one. Things started out a little rough, but you know how it goes when you go out for the first time of the year. Practically everything went wrong. It started out with my forgetting the key to the lock hitch on my truck (I was supposed to tow the boat...