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 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....
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...
{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...
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...
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....
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...
Seas: 1-3' Winds: 10-15 ESE Viz: 45'+ Temp: 82F In spite of the lack of a blog for last week, it was actually a good hunting weekend as we found big mangroves on the patch reefs for the first time this Summer. In fact, I shot what was probably one of my biggest mangroves yet, weighing in that 6-7lb class. I didn't think it merited a blog though, since I got it on a make up shot because my brother in law had missed it and we wanted to make sure it didn't hightail it out of the staghorn before...
Winds: 0-5 Seas: Less than 1 foot Surf Temp: 87F Viz: 50-100 feet If I had to pick a weekend to be able to begin diving again, this was it (I figure somewhere around 70% of my hearing has returned)! There was literally no wind and minimal seas to deal with. The viz was absolutely incredible, as we were moving at 35 mph and spotting fish as we passed over different patch reefs. We had an incredible time of it. The only downside was an inadequacy in the headcount department. We limited out on...
Winds: 5-10 West Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: 83 F Viz: 10-20 feet Another day of picture perfect weather that doesn't provide perfect conditions. It takes so much longer to clear up the after effects of some bad weather. We have only been able to dive with visibility in our shallower spots (15-20 ft). Luckily, we were able to shoot up some decent size mangoes in a shallow patch reef. After that, we got a little excited and thought that some of our deeper patch reefs might have cleared up....
Winds: 10-12 South Seas: 2-4 feet Surf Temp: 83 F Viz: 10-15 feet Today started out a little slow, but we were rewarded for our continued effortrs by bagging some of our favorite and recently absent quarry, Black Grouper. Not just a Black, but a big Black , at least for this area (34 inches). We haven't bagged a specimen like this for more than a few years (actually, since 2001 ). We actually bagged more grouper today than we have for the past couple of weeks. The big one from above, another...
Seas: 2-3 feet Winds: 10-15 W/SW Viz: 5-35 feet Temp: 86 F Well, it's the end of yet another Summer of diving and spearfishing. I would say that this one definitely seemed to have come and gone a lot faster than other years in the past. Even though it started out pretty strong this Summer (even without the presence of large groupers), it really seemed to lighten up around mid-July when the water just wouldn't warm up like it usually does and with the added inconvenience of the swarms of...
Seas: 2-3 feet Winds: 15 E/SE Viz: 15-25feet Temp: 82F Well the winds finally laid down enough for us to give it another shot. We've been dealing with 3-5' seas inside the reef for 4 days now and when we haven't been getting the crap beat out of us by the seas, we've been pretty much bored to death. You can only make ice trips so many times before it becomes old hat. So even though we got a late start we head out to see if we can find some clean water. The seas didn't seem to be much more than...