shallow depth. In the Glory Hole, I find a couple of short black groupers (insert pun here) and about a 6 foot nurse shark all cozily co-residing but there was obviously nothing to shoot so I stop fighting the current and drift back a little more to the...
I dove at a buoy off the SouthWest end of Cat Cay in over 50’ of water. This spot was littered with very large crevices (and sharks I had been told) and an incredible amount of life. If you followed the reef to the ocean side, it would drop off into...
seemed as though you couldn't peek under a ledge or a large rock without finding lobsters stacked up like rows of teeth in a shark's mouth. In addition to the large numbers we were finding, we were also very surprised by the very large size of hte...
Fish started flying into the boat from every direction. The only issues that arose were the few barracudas and the one bull shark that frequented the area a few times. I actually tried to get some video of the shark but a camera malfunction created a...
my concern over the usual occurance of sliced dyneema wishbones with notched spearshafts as opposed to mini or full shark fin tabs. Mike pointed out that the notches are blasted so as to dull the edge of the notch to minimize wear and tear on the...
water for more than 5 minutes on this pass, before I heard my brother-in-law say that they had been buzzed by a 7 foot Bull Shark. Taking a little extra caution because his son was in the water with us, we decided to move to another location. Since we...
to the left to follow the fish, unbeknownst to me, my brother-in-law, while reloading his gun, has spotted a 10 foot Bull Shark. It comes close enough for him to poke it in the side of the head when it got a little too close for comfort. By this time I...
Mon Aug 4, 2008 -A couple of pesky nurse sharks and a couple of formidable bull sharks later, the 16 and 17 lb prizes are in the bag. Check out the blog
piling and pop my head out of the water. As the boat speeds by me, my sister-in-law and wife yell to me "Hurry up! there's a shark!". Not knowing which direction the shark could be coming from, I jump right into the turbulent water behind the boat's...
so I breathed up at the surface and descended again. This time I was greeted at the entrance to the hole by a curious Nurse Shark that had picked up on the commotion with the Mutton. I would not be swayed. The Nurse kept circling back around so I had to...
of the last spots we hit, I chased a couple of nice cero mackerel (to no avail) and shortly after doing so, an 8 foot bull shark swam across the reef. Luckily he wasn't interested in me at all. After a while, it was getting very late so we decided to...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2009
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Gallery Spotlight
June 11, 2019 - Another Happy Grouper Weekend Without Bull Sharks This Time!
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...
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 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.
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...
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....
Well, another year has come and gone. Some changes have been implemented for us spearfishermen this year, not the least of which is the closing of all shallow water grouper from Jan 19, 2010 through April 30, 2010. If you want to read more about the reasons behind the closing, check out this article . In future years, the closing is scheduled to begin Jan 1 (instead of 19th like this year). The closing includes pretty much every grouper species with the only exceptions being the Snowy, Warsaw...
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: 1 feet Winds: 5-10 E/SE Viz: 50-60 feet Temp: 80 F The weather had been holding up all week and the forecast from NOAA indicated the weekend would be more of the same, so I had been anxiously waiting all week for Friday to come along. After a long week of meetings at work (which sometimes felt like they would never end), there were times I couldn't wait for the weekend but Friday was finally here and I was ready for a good day. As far as work days go, Friday was as good as one could...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSE Temp: 85 F Viz: 10 feet Today wasn't very different with respect to the conditions over the past week. We have had picture perfect weather with completely clear skies, literally next to no wind whatsoever (5-10mph) and virtually calm seas over the past week. But unfortunately as perfect as the weather has been is exactly how bad the water conditions have been as well. It has been a very laborious week because the viz has been so limited. Having to dive to the...
Wind Seas Viz Temp N-NE 10-18mph 2-4' 30' 77F As 2017 was drawing to a close, I decided it was time to get back on the water and give it one last try before grouper season closed on January 1. With the Christmas break upon us, my kids were home and off from school, so we decided to make it a family day on the water (with the exception of my wife that was unfortunately at work today). Throw in my daughter's oldest friend for good measure, and we were off! The forecast wasn't exceptional, but...
Winds: 5-10 south Seas: less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 78F Viz: 25 feet As far as the above water weather, it would have been hard to do much better than this weekend. The winds were next to non-existent and we experienced seas of less than a foot up to 7 miles out and could see it was flat as far as the eye could see. It definitely made for a quick trip out to any of our spots offshore. The only real issue was the haze from the brush fires in the Everglades that made the entire sky look like we...