The Caribbean Spiny Lobster season will close in:

marathon

  • May 1-3, 2017 - Grouper Opening 2017 - Why are we the only ones out here?

     Wind Seas Viz Temp
    E-SE 18-24mph 4-6' 5-15' 79F

    The excitement for grouper opening started a few weeks ago when my brother in law and I started discussing our plans. There was talk of scouting on Sunday and taking Monday through Wednesday off to maximize our time on the water. We would connect with our friends Lazaro and Chris and we were hopeful that we would have a good opening like last year. As usual, we talked timing, accommodations and weather forecasts. After talking about it for about a week, Lazaro told us to forgo the logistics and stay with him as his place would be empty (with the exception of himself).  We gladly accepted his generous invitation.

  • Apr 30-May 3, 2016 - Grouper Season Opening

    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 spearfishing that I spent the 2-3 weeks leading up to the weekend double checking everything I could on my boat and my gear to make sure I was ready. My new Koah 110x was ready to go, the boat seemed to be in good working order and everything was lining up for a great time. We were actually waiting to decide which boat to take until we got a clearer weather picture, but some mechanical difficulties on my brother-in-law's bay boat had us calling upon my boat. It would have ended up this regardless, once we saw the forecast calling for 20-25mph ESE winds and 3-6' seas inside the reef in the Florida Keys. I had done everything I could, so we were as ready as we were gonna be (which would unfortunately prove to be not ready enough).

  • End of an era

    For the past 20+ years my family and I have been heading down to Marathon during the Summer months for the purposes of spearfishing and family weekends. Over the past 15+ years since owning my web site, these Summers have offered me the opportunity to load up my site with blogs and pictures that have entertained me (and hopefully some of you) tremendously along the way. I have looked forward to my Summer escapades chasing mahi, snapper, grouper, hogfish and facing sharks and goliaths every Spring... that is, up until this year.

  • July 26-27, 2014 - Spot #11G - The G is for Mutton?

     

    Wind Seas Viz Temp
    5-15mph SSE 2-3 SE Swell 40-50' 86F

     

    The past couple of weekends were plagued with algea blooms and low viz thanks to the higher surf temps and a West wind that always seems to wreak havoc for us. But right around Wednesday of this week, the wind started to turn more Southerly with an occasional Easterly influence so we were hopeful that it would be enough to clean up the water in time for the weekend. We got some conflicting reports about viz from friends, but luckily we noticed that some of these friends were working drastically different areas. So when we woke up Saturday morning, we were still optimistic about the conditions we were going to find.

  • 4th of July Week

    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 were willing to brave the rough water enough to captain for us while we dove.

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