Brad , Nate , Corey and I ran west to to spear out by the Marquesas Keys, and frankly it wasn’t worth it. The visibility never got much over 20 feet and was substantially less most of the day. We went out to deeper water and tried to chum up pelagic fish but we were totally unprepared bringing only one measly box of plantation chum.
Even though we had limited chum we did get two shots at wahoo but both Cory and I didn’t connect. We ended up getting a mixed bag of reef fish muttons, triggerfish, snapper, mackerels and a couple lobsters nothing particularly big or photogenic
Catherine and I went out spear fishing for a half day yesterday. Our neighbors down the canal said the vis wasn’t so great and they where right. Actually the vis was ok around high tide on the reef 30-40 feet but earlier in the day it didn’t look so hot. We had around 40 on the bar most of the time we where out there.
Haven’t paid to be able to embed the HD video yet, probably will once we have a day with good vis and some action caught on tape.
The high tide was at 4 pm so we waited until around 11am to go out. Probably should have waited till noon or later though.
Catherine and I drifted with flashers most of the day. We didn’t see a lot of fish. Catherine practiced shooting little clips with the new camera. She loves it , it is way less buoyant and has way less drag then the old camera. She couldn’t stop talking about how easier it was dive down and stay down.
On one drift as we were about to head back up current and Kingfish swam in under the boat. I followed him for a bit and he didn’t speed up so I dropped down and shot him. Catherine was in the boat with the camera , of course. He ended up being 20#.
We headed in shallow after that. Catherine and I had both been a little sick the previous couple days and she got beat pretty quickly. We dropped anchor in the shallows and I got a shot on small black grouper but he out smarted me. I tossed in a couple lobster heads and had a ton of little fish come in along with 3-4 legal hogfish. I wasn’t really in the mood to clean little fish, so I held my fire.
It was good short day, only thing bad is that I was freezing. My expensive “toughest” wetsuit is full of holes. The damn thing was crazy expensive and now its looking like it might not make through 2 measly winters of diving. I already had it patched up last season and its full of holes again. Catherine was saying I should just get a 5mm because it will take longer for me to put holes through it.
Brad and I went out spear fishing yesterday. First time in ten days which is kind of a while for me. There is not a whole lot of stuff that interests me on the land. So if there is no fishing I tend to just work and workout a lot, both of which reach a point where you stop making headway if you don’t take a break.
We headed west yesterday and tried to drift over the top of some deep wrecks looking for Wahoo. We didn’t see any. We did have a school of amberjacks bum rush our flashers. Also some small ciro mackerel and one kingfish followed the flashers too. The water was pretty blue but chalky offshore. After a while we gave up and headed to the reef which looked like crap. So we headed to the bar and the vis was good probably 70-80 feet.
We drifted on the bar, picked up a snapper and black grouper. We saw a lot of blacks and some amberjacks but we didn’t do so hot actually getting them in the boat. The winds where around 15 knots or so which wasn’t that bad but the current was cranking to the west. We tried to anchor and it was impossible to swim against it. So we drifted but with only two people and ripping current, it was sort of difficult.
At high tide we headed in to the main reef, on the high tide there was probably 45 feet of visibility the current was less but the winds had picked up to 17 knots or more. We picked up another grouper, a jack and another snapper. We saw a lot of other good fish but had difficulties communicating with each other so each one could chase their fish. Towards the end we got our things together but by then the vis had decreased to less then 30 feet.
I brought a new camera out with me to test it and it the whole time when the vis was good and the sun was shining it sat in the boat. By the end of the day once the sun was setting, the vis was going away and I had a leg cramp I busted it out and shot a couple pics and a test video. It kind of shows without Catherine how many UW pics would be on this site
Nothing conclusive, the video looks good for the conditions and the price of the camera, snapshots are still up in the air.
To be fair to the camera the original doesn’t look quite so choppy and messed up in the beginning. Also Catherine is much better at holding the camera still then me. Larger Resolution version on vimeo here
Well the wind has been blowing over 20 knots for about a week now . Actually yesterday they said it would be windy but it actually seemed pretty nice.
There is new store in Key West with spear fishing gear, called Divercity, located on the southern end of Duval.
Its pretty small but they have a lot of free dive spear fishing stuff. It’s the only store in Keys that selling rabitech guns and free diver shafts. Actually they might even be the only store in Florida that sells either of those. They are also selling stuff on consignment. I guess they will be doing a bunch of equipment rentals etc.
It will be nice to just be able to go get a shaft if needed rather then having to order one online.
