All in all it was still a great day (no matter how horribly I was shooting) as my friend Adrian ended up with about a 10# mutton snapper as well as a 24" red grouper (he's really annoying that way ;). We held off on cleaning fish that day because the...
I'm hoping to get out in February to scout some new spots in the Miami area to see if I can find some good Hogfish and Mutton spots (since Grouper is closed) or maybe even get out for some more bluewater action. I've been hearing some good reports about...
the video shot but I got the fish so I was still stoked. As I'm dispatching the fish and reloading my gun, I notice a legal mutton snapper has let his curiosity get the better of him and has moved in close to investigate what all the commotion is about....
follows that shot on the big one. The fact is that if it weren't for that very reel, I would have lost my personal best Mutton Snapper that I shot on my first Summer dive of 2010 (see May 22, 2010 - It's about time). But this new reel is the epitome of...
of chasing or mentioning so we kept moving West. After hitting a few spots, we had a Black and a Gag Grouper, a couple of muttons and about 15 Mangroves in the cooler. We had lost a couple of other grouper at one of the spots so we were determined to...
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 was probably about 10lbs, but missed the former and couldn’t close the gap on the latter to take a shot....
ear has pinched on me completely to where I can't equalize at all but we close out the day with our limit in mangroves, a mutton, a red grouper, a margate and some nice sized ocean tallies. Sunday morning we head out early with a full boat to go on a...
the bunches. After a few mangroves, we ran into a couple of bait balls that had all kinds of fish in attendance. Mangroves, muttons, mackerels and more! We move on from spot to spot, each one taking us further and further west with the water getting...
started out a little slow but decent with a couple of very nice sized ocean tallies (grey triggerfish) and even a nice mutton. On a subsequent drop, Adrian yelled out about another large tally so I headed over to get mine (I had already lost one, so I...
have to move on. We finish the day at the Staghorn (see the video in the video gallery) where I'm able to land yet another mutton snapper. I think I've shot more muttons so far this summer than any 2 or 3 others combined. We get lazy today after a long...
spot a little more thoroughly. We arrive to find some decent clarity and the first thing I spot when I jump in is a legal mutton. So I descend and chase the mutton. Luckily this mutton doesn't make too many evasize moves and I'm able to bag her...
hit one spot in about 40' that looked extremely promising upon arrival but after a whole bunch of descents, I only had one Mutton to show for my effort. It's really tough diving repeatedly to 40' with so little to show for it. Especially when you aren't...
{phocagallery view=category|categoryid=16|imageid=268|detail=5|float=right|type=1}First stop, the spot I landed that big mutton a couple of weeks ago to see if the switch in the wind back to the East was successful in driving some fish back into...
in the area so it was nice to hang out and have nothing to do but chit chat about last weekend's weather, the mutton I caught a couple of weeks ago and the latest gear (more specifically, how much more money I need to spend in their stores) with my...
draw in any curious fish that may be in the area to no avail. I am just about at the end of my breath, when I see a large mutton come in to view on my right side. I decide I have a little more in me and descend once again to pursue this very nice...
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...
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....
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...
The summer had been busier than I would have liked this year and I honestly hadn't had as many opportunities to post much less given much thought to writing a new SpearView, but after having time to really reconsider, I realized that I had actually had multiple opportunities to try out new equipment this year (not all of it successfully). Further to that point, when I took the PFI Freediver course back in March I had decided to invest in a new mask and ended up deciding on the Omer Zero Cubed...
{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...
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...
Well I finally thought the time was right and stepped up to buy myself a GoPro camera a couple of weeks ago. I waited for the launch of the Hero2 because I was following the specs for this new model prior to the release and I was very interested in some of them specifically. The new model has a considerable list of new features that make it so much better for the money (even though, now you can pick up the regular Hero for almost $100 less). Among the new features are:
Winds: SE 5-10 Seas: 1-2 ft Surf Temp: 81 F Viz: 20-30 ft This weekend we found a strange phenomenon in the water (at least it was weird for us). As we rode out to some of our spots, the water appeared to be practically crystalline. But when we jumped in the water we found a rather odd themalcline. When diving in about 30 feet, we found the bottom 5-6 feet to not only be warmer, but extremely dirty. The other odd thing about this phenomenon was that the water was extremely warm by comparison....
Seas: 3-5 feet Winds: 20-25 S/SE Viz: 20 feet Temp: 81 F The forecast for the long weekend was promising, at least for Saturday. S-SE winds at 5-10 knots with seas 1' inside the reef and only 1-3' outside the reef, phehomenal. The outlook wasn't as great for Sunday and Monday, but we hoped one good day would be enough and besides, we usually get the hell outta Dodge early on holidays to beat the traffic so Monday didn't even really count, so we were hopeful as we pulled in Friday night and I...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 15-25 ESE 4-5' 30-40' 81F Once again, the most anticipated weekend for Florida spearfisherman rolls around and this year I actually got to plan some time off and hit it for a few days in a row. I hadn't had many opportunities to dive this winter (with the windiest winter I can recall) and even on those few occasions I did get to go, it just didn't live up to expectations. I was so excited to finally get back in the water this year for a full weekend of diving and...
Winds: 0-5 Seas: Less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 87F Viz: 50-100 feet If I had to pick a weekend to be able to begin diving again, this was it (I figure somewhere around 70% of my hearing has returned)! There was literally no wind and minimal seas to deal with. The viz was absolutely incredible, as we were moving at 35 mph and spotting fish as we passed over different patch reefs. We had an incredible time of it. The only downside was an inadequacy in the headcount department. We limited out on...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 S Temp: 82 F (drastic thermal clines) Viz: 25-30 feet Saturday had us up well before dawn as we decided to go out for dolphin first thing with the promise of extremely calm seas and next to no wind for a good part of the day. We were loaded up and on our way out of the marina just as the sun was rising. With 1-2 foot seas as far as the eye could see, we made excellent time heading out into the blue water. We decided to go out in our own boat because the seas were so...