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Been saving up video clips for past month or so, and put them together, its a bit long but oh well …. A bunch of footage of various sea creatures and a few fish being shot

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Finally went out on the water yesterday. Catherine and I had been sick with some sort of sinus issues for the past couple weeks, so no water no working out. Which has been pretty crappy but it’s hopefully over now. We went out spearfishing with Nate, Cory, and Ethan on Nate’s friend Robert’s boat. Robert’s boat is pretty sick: it’s a 28 foot Whitewater. I am usually really satisfied with my little boat but after riding in that it has me thinking.

Anyways we decided to hit the Navy towers in the Gulf. After a bit of a drive we hit the first one. The water was dirty for quite a while on the way out then it turned blue and by the time we reached the tower there was 60 feet of visibility. The life around the tower was awesome. You could see big schools of barracuda and permit from the boat. Corey and Ethan were first in the water and quickly had shot our limit of big permit. In retrospect I should have had them wait until Catherine was in the water to get a video of the permit slaughter. Jacks in general seem to like to have their death filmed, whereas Black grouper and mutton snapper not as much, you will probably notice that if you watch the videos on this site.

Catherine and I then hit the water. Robert was going to tank dive the tower but he let us freedive it first. While Corey and Ethan were busy with therir permit, I decided to see what was down a little bit deeper. I dove down to the first cross bar which is around 60 feet down and there were 3 cubera snapper hanging out on it. I kept dropping and I could tell they where starting to drop too so I took a long shot and hit the biggest. After that I shot a couple mangroves off the tower. I would have liked to push a bit deeper on the tower but at 55-60 feet the vis dropped to about 10 feet or less and I also didn’t want to push my ears just coming back from a sinus sickness.

Pretty much since we had gotten there, there had been a couple of sharks circling, but then a pack of sharks showed up. There were about 10 of them and they were going to take our fish. We stopped shooting and took some video and pictures. Then Ethan shot a big mangrove and the sharks pushed up on him to the point where he climbed up on the tower. We were in the boat at the time so it was pretty funny. After that we took off because we didn’t know how long it would take them to leave.

After that we hit the new grounds which was ok, we dove from 30-10 feet of water. Visibility was like 10-15 feet, tops. We picked up a bunch of big hogfish, (well big for the Keys) and some red groupers. Then we hit the next naval tower and it was pretty lame, not much on it. So we hit some nearby rocks, I shot a nice maybe 15# black. After that the vis was pretty bad and my ears were having trouble equalizing, so I stopped diving. The other guys hit some more spots and a small wreck and got some more snappers and hog fish. Pretty amazing day.

Yesterday, Catherine Brian, Mike and I went out did a little tour of the wrecks in front of Key West, free diving all of them. First stop was the Cayman Salvage, it is on 82-85 feet of water. The scuba divers on it where just leaving so we dove it with guns, there wasn’t a lot on it that we could see. The surface vis was good and we could see the wreck from the surface, also could see the large jewfish sitting next to it in the sand. The deck was around 70 feet down and we could see lots of small fish, there where permit but we were inside the 3 mile line so we didn’t spear any. We tried to get down to look under the wreck but due to depth and lack of vis on the bottom we gave up.

The next wreck we dove was the Vandenburg. It was just sunk last week so no fish really on it yet. Plus it is covered with head boats. There was no need to bring the guns. I honestly had a ton of fun snorkeling the wreck. Due to it being more offshore the vis was fantastic and the top structures are in 50-60 feet down and totally reachable freedivng. We were luck enough to not have any current and we spent a fairly long time just taking pictures.

The next stop was joe’s tug. The wreck was deserted so we brought our guns, there was tons of bait and yellow jacks. No one saw any good bottom fish, but close by there was good bottom and decent spearing. We hit some other spots along the reef line Brian picked up a king mackerel and black grouper. Mike shot a cero mackerel , hog fish and mahogany snapper. We had some turned on reef sharks come and try to steal fish. They were much more aggressive then most sharks we see, unfortunately I only got one on film and then my batteries died. I totally forgot I had a spare in boat, and after I remember the shark escapades where over.

We hit some shallow stuff on the reef and Catherine took pictures of the tarpon and corals. I shot zero fish, still have a lot of grouper and Aj left from last week.

Went out to see the Vandenberg sink with Catherine on Wednesday, it was ok but due to us being on the windward side of the ship, the smoke from the explosions blocked most of the sinking. Also a a-hole driving a sebego parasail boat had to quick move 50 feet forward and get right in front of us as it went down. Like being 50 feet closer really improved the view. I also had a guy almost drive his catamaran into my boat, he was talking to his wife and fiddling with something totally not paying attention to where his boat was going. I guess technically he was coming from the starboard side which would possible give him the right of way, but he was running pretty much along side of me, and if I didn’t suddenly stop and swerve to the side we would have collided. I have pretty much come to the conclusion that a big percentage of boaters are totally idiots and should be avoided as much as possible. Which is part of the beauty of living in the Key West. Drive a few miles west and there is next to no boats, and most you see are professional fisherman, who aren’t just out messing around.

After the sinking Catherine and I went a few miles west and did a drift. There where perfect conditions 60+ feet of visibility and next to no current. We dropped anchor in 50 feet of water and put a block of chum out. Its very rare that conditions are good for chumming. There has to be next to no current for it to be enjoyable to me. Immediately schools of speedos and bar jacks where all around us. There was also a large mutton snapper who took off as soon as I got half way to the bottom. I shot some ciro mackerel and jacks and cut them up and let them sit on the bottom. The big mutton came back and again took off when I started to dive. A few short grouper showed up and more cero mackerel. An amberjack around 25# showed up and I shot him. Most Amberjacks I have shot in the vitals and really didn’t put up much of a fight. This one I hit high in the back and fought like crazy. I was enjoying the fight until a big lemon shark came in, then I got in the boat and pulled the jack out. It was taking forever to fight him in the water and shark would have probably eaten him.

After gutting and bleeding the AJ, the shark was kind of fired up, but since it was staying on the bottom we kept fishing. I saw nice black grouper but lost sight of him. So shot a bar jack and let him run around on my shooting line, immediately the grouper appeared but so did the lemon shark. I was the only one with a gun so the live chumming was kind of pointless. The shark grabbed the jack and a barracuda hit the crimp in my shooting line and cut the line. So then I had to swim down and find my shaft, re-rig my gun and again have no idea where the grouper went.

We played hide and seek with the grouper for awhile longer and then called it a day. Kind of slow day but a good time and an amberjack for the smoker.

I went back the next day to the same spot and took this 21# black off it, not sure if it’s the same one but pretty good either way.