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!
in this rare shallow water visitor of a Sailfish. The really interesting thing is that I didn't even see it until I was reviewing my video footage from the day!
you I didn't get in much sleep before the alarm went off at 4:30a thanks to all the nervous energy and mental checklist review that I was dealing with in my head. Day 1 (Thursday) We actually launch right on time the following morning and are navigating...
this mask. I immediately went back and purchased the Mystic which had been highly recommended by other divers as well as reviews in the spearfishing publication "Ultimate Spearfishing" in their comprehensive review of low volume masks (I don't recall...
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...
day of the course has classroom in the morning, a pool session in the early afternoon and a final classroom session to review the material and happenings from the day's teachings. The class room portion of the course was interesting and quickly paced...
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...
make your underwater video almost production quality. I made my choice but will keep this spearview to the GoPro Hero2 and review the case I purchased in another article soon. In the end, I can't say enough great things about this device and when you...
to break in my new camera and even more so the specialized underwater case from Oculus (both of which I will definitely review in SpearViews soon). I wasn't looking to go terribly far today since we got a late start and the expectation from the crew was...
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 read it and...
for quite a while hoping to see something worthy of taking a shot with my new Hawaiian sling from hawaiiansling.net (my review of this sling to be posted in the near future in SpearViews), but I was very worried about missing and having to chase my...
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...
one of his shafts with two (2) notches for use on my Riffe Euro 100. After using it for 3 weeks, I decided I would review the shaft to document my results. My first concern was the thickness of the shaft. However, although I typically use 6.5mm shafts,...
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...
Over the weekend of March 27th & 28th 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...
But after following the link and reading the article, I started to get upset. This so-called "video workshop" is to review the status of Pompano, African Pompano and Permit (possibly) and see if the bag and size limits for these fish should be modified...
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...
1 being a gag or black. The limits are a little different if you are fishing exclusively in Gulf waters, so I recommend you review the regs for yourself and get acquainted because there were other changes too. I guess if I get to go out for some late...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2010
Results 1 - 19 of 19
Gallery Spotlight
September 4, 2010 - Finally a reprieve from the Grouper recession we've been experiencing all summer long.
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.
{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.
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.
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...
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.
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 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...
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...
I got an email from my brother in law and at first reading, I wasn't really sure why he sent it to me or why I should pay extra attention to it. The email had a link to an article on the FWC site about a Pompano and African Pompano video workshop that the FWC was scheduling. We don't get a lot of Permit family fish because they are protected in state waters and we don't do a lot of federal water spearfishing, so at first glance I thought, "Who cares..."
Seas: 2-4 feet Winds: 5-15 ESE Temp: 80 F Viz: 25-30 feet After missing out last weekend, this weekend had me pulling an all nighter at work on Friday, so I didn't pull into the keys until almost 10a Saturday morning on no sleep for 27 hours (but I wasn't going to miss out on another weekend). Luckily, I am pretty accustomed to the drive, so I probably only dozed off 2 or 3 times... tops :). About 5 minutes out of the campground, I got a call asking if I wanted my gear put on the boat in case...
Winds: 20-25 east (Sat)/5-10 east (Sun) Seas: 3-5 feet (Sat) / 3-4 feet (Sun) Surf Temp: 79F Viz: 0 feet (inshore) / 70+ feet (offshore) The weather people (I make it sound like they're aliens or something) almost got it right this weekend too! The weather was originally calling for heavy wind, rain and seas for the entire weekend, but luckily we headed down to the keys anyway. Those that decided to forego this weekend actually passed up on a nice offshore day on Sunday. Saturday afternoon may...
I'm not going to lie to you, I got a little lazy and didn't track any of my weather stats this weekend. Diving, cleaning fish and cooking start to take their toll on you and you get to the point where all you want to do is get some sleep instead of being responsible and entering your blog. Then again, I probably tell more people about our goings-on these weekends than actually read them here... Opening day of lobster season! What a madhouse!!! The really interesting part (and by interesting, I...
Winds: 5-10 South Seas: 1-2 feet (maximum) Surf Temp: +/- 80F Viz: 15-25 feet The viz was about as good as it was last weekend, but the important thing is... NO BULL SHARKS! It sure was nice to be able to actually shoot more than 1 or 2 fish before having to move to another location. We took our time picking out the best of the schools and ended up shooting a couple of really nice mangoes and hogs. We've been going more for quality than quantity lately and it has been very gratifying. The...
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