water was not too cold, but I decided to stay warm and use my wetsuit. I will say this, it is not good practice to go spearfishing solo (as I did today). There are a number of things you have to keep track of in addition to the fish and your breath when...
were times they had to be close to 100 feet away from me and I could spot them clearly. It was so clean that as we were spearfishing, the kids were following me around on the surface and observing every move I made on the bottom. It really gave them a...
fit the bill. For now, it's just an assumption on my part, but it sure did look the part. We were actually on our first spearfishing spot by 10a that morning, so we didn't spend too much time in our efforts for dolphin. The good news this weekend is...
of weekends have been abysmal at best. But luckily for me, this weekend has let me make up for the past few (from a spearfishing perspective) and this blog will have me at my usual loquacious self with a little more verbal ammunition than I have had...
this past weekend (2/15/09), I was able to get out on a decent weather day to do some diving and (I thought) some spearfishing. Unfortunately we didn't have much luck this day (as evidenced by the total lack of pictures for this trip's catch. The day...
able to take a couple of nice underwater pics and videos of the kids on the reef. Saturday was not as much fun from a spearfishing perspective, although we did end up with a couple of nice mangroves for our effort (not me specifically, but we do share a...
water, my brother-in-law decides he's had enough and kindly offers to get out so I can try my hand at this new top-water spearfishing sport we were pioneering that day. I should have known it wasn't going to be my day... I get in the water and my mask...
Winds: 5-10 SSE Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 73F Viz: 15-30 feet Finally, we get to start out a new year of diving and spearfishing! We had been waiting for a few days of calm winds for the water to clean up. We had been putting up with 20-25 mph...
I am very excited to have another year of spearfishing and freediving just about ready to begin. Last year we were able to get a couple of winter dives in with some pretty decent results, so we hope to do even more of that this winter. As soon as the...
(although the lack of wind does tend to make it extremely hot). We were able to easily head out for some diving and spearfishing without getting tossed around too much. Unfortunately we weren't seeing the same size mangroves that we were running into...
I had to write about this weekend even though I wasn't the one that got to go spearfishing. I didn't get to record the conditions, although I know they were great. The water was still a little cool (around 76 F), but it was warm and clear out and the...
of the day without taking in any water through his snorkel. All in all, Sunday was a beautiful day of both diving and spearfishing. We were able to not only bag our limit on the mangoes, but on Hogfish too! We haven't had an opportunity to do that much...
Winds: 0-5 Seas: Less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 87F Viz: 20-40 feet This was another very nice weekend for diving and spearfishing. The weather has been agreeable for a couple of weeks now, and now that I have some of my hearing returning (about 50%), I...
My name is Bob Diaz. I have lived in South Florida my entire life and go spearfishing quite a bit. In the summers, it's pretty much all I do on the weekends down in the lower Florida Keys (responsibilities allowing). I hope you enjoy visiting my site...
journal, I have experienced a small setback. I am suffering from an inner ear problem which currently prohibits me from spearfishing. I will probably be out of commission for a couple of weeks (at least). But I guess it's worth it. I'm pretty stone cold...
than before because we just weren't going to let the entire day go by without actually getting in the water for some spearfishing. Especially on the first day of grouper. Once again we were in 4-6' seas with not much viz, but we kept heading West hoping...
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!
This review is actually long overdue as I've had this mask for well over a year now and I honestly don't know why I hadn't done it before now. After trying multiple masks over several years (and several hundred dollars), some were good (Mystic, Star, Nano), and some were bad (Zero Cubed). Before this, I had actually decided upon the Cressi Nano as "the one". I thoroughly enjoyed the fit and volume of the Nano, but there were a couple of VERY minor issues with the fit. I'm convinced that the...
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...
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...
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...
{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...
Winds: 15-20 S to E Seas: 5-8 feet (sloppy) Surf Temp: +/- 80F Viz: 40-50+ feet (depending on location) This week we were able to enjoy some incredible viz even though the seas were as rough as I can remember. We had strong winds and seas as high as 8 feet for at least 3 days. Incredibly enough the viz did not suffer. The fishing wasn't easy, but we were able to get some picture-worthy fish in spite of the seas. Of course we did have to drive ourselves most of this week as none of the ladies...
Unbenknownst to us, this would be our final weekend in the keys for this summer! Saturday allowed us to pick up quite a few bugs to stock our freezers, and it was a good thing too, because Hurricane (at least it was at that time) Ernesto had other things in mind for us. Once we got back from gathering yet a few more bugs on Sunday, we got the word about Hurricane Ernesto. After the two storms we experienced last year we decided to turn tail and get the heck out of Dodge. We made the decision...
Seas: 2-4 feet Winds: 15-25 E/SE Viz: 8 feet Temp: 84F Well, this weekend really blew (literally)! I pulled in Friday night to the sound of wind chimes that were more hanging on for dear life than playing the soothing sounds of a tropical breeze. The winds were considerably stronger than the 10-15mph winds the forecast called for and we of course hoped that it would settle down by morning to see if we could head out in search of clean water. As I awoke on Saturday and stepped outside however,...
Seas: 1-3' Winds: 5-15 SSE Viz: 15-20' Temp: 86F So this was supposed to be the weekend I get back to spearfishing after lobster season started last Monday. Since we had gotten bad viz reports from some friends that had spent the last week down in the keys and it's the last weekend before the kids' first day of school (meaning Sunday is a very short day), we figured time was short and we wouldn't waste it for wanting. After a quick decision to stay close in search of some hogfish, mangroves...
Well, the FWC met for 2 days on June 8th and 9th, 2011 and not only had a changing of the guard with a new chairman and vice chairman, but made quite a few other decisions. Most importantly for Florida spearos and fishermen are the changes in the Permit, Florida and African Pompano bag, size and gear limitations. You might need to take your Captain's course to be able to identify the new Special Permit Zones (SPZ's) that they have apparently approved wherein anglers (both rod/reel and spear)...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 10-15 E/SE Viz: 20-25 feet Temp: 84 F This weekend was looking really good from the forecast all week. Winds were supposed to be no more than 10-15 ESE with seas holding up at 1-2' inside the reef and a not-too-terrible 2-4' outside the reef. Unfortunately, as good as that sounds, it's not always the only determnining factor in having a good (or great) spearfishing weekend. Even though all the signs were pointing at another picture perfect weekend, we would be reminded...