One of the few usable clips from our outing for the opening of the Atlantic Grouper season 2017. Definitely demonstrates why you should always be checking your surroundings. Enjoy!
More things for you to see...
One of the few usable clips from our outing for the opening of the Atlantic Grouper season 2017. Definitely demonstrates why you should always be checking your surroundings. Enjoy!
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...
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...
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....
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....
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.
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.
Winds: 5-20 South Seas: 3-5 feet Surf Temp: 83 F Viz: 5-10 feet The weather pattern was almost identical to last weekend! Saturday was turbulent and dirty with winds picking up the seas to a steady 3-5 feet on Saturday. But Sunday was even cleaner than last week. Not only that, but the winds laid down and the seas were flat. Even my son was able to hang with us in the water for most of the day without taking in any water through his snorkel. All in all, Sunday was a beautiful day of both...
Seas: 1-3 feet Winds: 10-15 S/SE Viz: 45 feet Temp: 84 F Don't get me wrong. Regardless of my title for this article, I wouldn't trade the worst weekend in the keys for one sitting at home. And it wasn't the weather or the fishing but the fact that my ear has pinched up on me for 2 straight weeks making it extremely difficult to dive as long or as deep as I want to, so it's pretty frustrating (and painful). On the up-side though, for the first time that I can remember in my years of...
Winds: 5-10 SSE Seas: 1 foot Surf Temp: +/- 76F Viz: 25-35 feet After receiving a late Saturday afternoon call, and some frantic packing of all my stuff, I was waiting at the marina for my friends at 7:30am to do some more diving in Miami. We headed out of Matheson Hammock marina towards Fowey Light early enough to pass about a dozen boats making bait (what's that stuff used for again?). The seas were completely flat as far as the eye could see, and the best I have seen in Miami for quite some...
Seas: 1 foot Winds: 5-10 W/SW Viz: 25-40 feet Temp: 83F This past weekend was great and horrible all at the same time. The winds were so calm that there were hardly any seas to speak of but the lack of any wind at all coupled with the extreme heat made it brutally hot when you weren't moving in a vehicle or in the water. Luckily for me, I try to spend as much time as possible in the latter. This weekend started out like any other so far this summer when the seas have let us fish. We wake up...
Sat 8/4 Winds: SE 10-15 Seas: 2-4 ft Surf Temp: 81 F Viz: 20-30 ft We headed out this morning after missing the early morning low tide to see if we could find some mangoes at the reef. At first sight, it didn't really seem to be too rough, but first impressions are sometimes wrong (really wrong). The water was choppy and extremely sloppy. We hadn't even made it into Hawk's channel and the water was already throwing 3-4 waves at us. We rough it and continue on. We got to our first spot to find...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 84-87 F Viz: 70-80 feet We headed out Saturday morning with 6 divers on the boat. More than usual for us, but we had a couple of friends visiting in addition to our usual crew. We headed out to see if any fish had moved in to some of the spots that had been relatively empty over the past week or two. As we headed out, we were very encouraged by the clarity of the water and how it appeared to be getting even cleaner as we headed further out from shore. By...