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...
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.
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...
{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...
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.
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 multi-purpose (at least that is how I convinced myself to get it :). I was extremely torn among 3 choices. I was considering the Euro 120, 120x and 130. After a couple of weeks of deliberation and a lot of flip-flopping, I decided on the Euro 120....
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.
Wind Seas Viz Temp NW 5-10mph 1-2' 20-25' 75F The winds had been incessant all through April and as May came around there was no end in sight. Throughout the month, everyone was landlocked and cabin fever was setting in with the fishermen I knew (and liquor stores were running low). So as the forecast for Memorial Day kept looking so good, there were 3 factions: 1) those that didn't believe it (Memorial Day historically has bad weather), 2) those that would sell their Grandmothers to get out...
The What'sApp chat group for this year's "Guy's Fishing Trip" actually started out as a discussion for a possible trip to Bimini in Dec of 2015 before the end of the year. I was stoked. Last year's Bimini Christmas was a blast and I couldn't wait to get back. Unfortunately, weather and responsibilities kept us from successfully making the trip. Gladly though, chatter started up again in February about this year's second annual Summer trip (which is now considered a tradition - at least by me)....
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...
Seas: 2-4' Winds: 10-20 ESE Viz: 20-45' Temp: 78F It was a little upsetting for me to realize as I sat down to compose this week's blog that I hadn't even gotten around to composing my usual "Foreward" blog at the beginning of this year. It was even sadder for me to think that it was because I hadn't been in the water since December 26. So in efforts to combat my sadness and keep up my word count on my blogs (like anyone else is counting - or even reading) this one turned out a little long...
It's not often that my blogs deviate from my favorite hobby, but my thoughts lately have been with friends and family that have been dealing with loss of one kind or another during the holiday season. This holiday season in particular seems to have been especially laden with loss for many that I care about. A few years ago, I lost my dad close to the holidays so I feel like I can relate to my friends and loved ones that lose people close to their hearts during the time of year when pretty much...
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...