posted by admin on Apr 26
Some Videos from the past month, all the clips taken with the gun cam were taken by Harry, who was visiting. You can see more of his videos here http://www.youtube.com/malaka5150
Click the more link to see the video
Archive for April, 2009
posted by admin on Apr 23
Harry from West Palm came down and we went out spearfishing April 21st and 22nd. First day we stayed close to Key West. We did ok but nothing spectacular. The visibility was not that good 30 feet most of the day, for a little while it was in the 40s. A lot of rocks that held a lot of grouper a couple months ago seem to be dead now, except for shorts. Harry shot his first permit and a large hammerhead shark seemed attracted by it but did not try to eat it. One thing that was pretty amazing was the triggerfish. In one area there were a ton of trigger fish. It must be their spawning time, at one point I counted 20 just in front of me and they were all around me. I shot a large trigger, maybe the largest I ever shot, I should have weighed it. We also shot some smaller dog snappers.
The next day we went west to the Marquesas Keys , vis was around the same but with a little more current. We hit a lot of rock ledges and picked up a bunch of fish. A larger dog around 8 pounds, a couple of permit, a yellow jack. Then in a little cave I shot a big cubera snapper, well not really big since they grow to over a hundred pounds and this one was 45#, but huge for me. And big for anyone diving without tanks. When I shot it it ran out the other side of the cave taking my gun through with it. Harry swam in and shot the fish again, but it was still still kicking so we shot it a third time. It didn’t seem very important to shoot more fish that day, and ironically shortly after my mask broke , so I had to sit the last few spots out. Harry shot a black grouper and then a nice mutton snapper off the edge of the reef.
The wind was flat all day, and it was a great day to be out on the water.
One more pic of the snapper
posted by admin on Apr 13
Went spear fishing on Saturday with Brian, his girlfriend Amy and Catherine. The wind was light and the visibility was good 40-70 feet but there was a lot of current towards the edge of the reef. We hit some deeper stuff first and saw some nice fish but the ripping current was a problem. The reef was sort of crowded compared to what I am used to. There were boats on a bunch of spots I usually hit. There were some trigger fish and yellow jacks and Brian shot a triggerfish.
We drift dove a bunch of spots from around 30-50 feet deep along the reef line. The lack of fish was kind of amazing, huge rocks, tons of bait and next to nothing. Not even the usual schools of yellow jacks and trigger fish. So we headed in from the reef line and drifted across some more patchy bottom. 30-35 feet of water with a sand bottom and occasional humps of rock. We started to get some fish. First Brian got red grouper, then I shot a black grouper then another red grouper. I hit some other humps I marked, they where covered in mangrove snappers and small porgies. Some of mangroves were big but I didn’t really want them.
Then we came closer to home and drifted some hard bottom where I had picked up a bunch of hogfish before. Amy and Brian finished out the day shooting a few more hogfish. Amy shot all her fish with a pole spear.
On Sunday me and Catherine headed out again at around 1 pm. We went out around a hundred feet deep and drifted around dragging flashers. I was hoping to see king fish but didn’t see any. Saw some great bottom in about 70 feet of water with a ton of small fish hanging over it. I didn’t want to really do deep dives with just Catherine with me, so I marked it for another day.
The flashers attracted cero mackerel , bar jacks and barracuda but nothing else. Saw a couple small muttons and took a shot at one but he eluded me. I then decided to come back in shallow but the vis wasn’t that hot, so we went and took pictures of the star gazer reef and called it a day.
posted by admin on Apr 6
Went out spearfishing on Saturday with Mike , Chris , Matt , Catherine and myself. There had been crappy vis the week earlier and we were expecting the visibility to be terrible but it wasn’t. Gulf Stream waters where on the edge of the reef and pushing in with the high tide. The bar had blue water and 60+ feet of visibility all day and at high tide there was good vis at least mile on to the reef. On the way out we check the waters around Sand Key but on the low tide the water was chalky and less then 20 feet of vis. Pretty much to get good vis on the main reef it had to be high tide. The wind was from the south and the waves laid down as soon as the tide started coming in.
We ended up starting our day a little west of western dry rocks and worked back. Almost all the legal blacks we saw where in 50 feet or more of water and with the gulfstream current where pretty elusive. I got one and saw many more, some in the neighborhood of 30 pounds, which is really nice fish to get freediving. We shot a bunch of reef fish Mutton Snapper, Triggerfish( one was 8 pounds shot by matt), Amberjack, Yellow Jacks and bunch of hogfish (one shot by mike was 4 pounds which is pretty good for the keys ). Mike also shot a nice porgy but I lost it for him when his float got caught on the boat and I gave it a hard pull, not remembering there was a stringer attached.
My ear got messed up so I had to quit diving early but other then that it was pretty good day on the water.
Not to let the good conditions slip away, I went out spear fishing again with Brian and Catherine on Sunday I tried to go out after the tide started turning around at noon, but it was like the tide didn’t start coming in until like 2 pm. Which didn’t make sense to me because the tide charts said it was supposed to turn around a couple hours earlier then that. Pretty much the conditions before the tide turned around where mediocre , the south wind against the tide created pretty big waves and the vis on the reef was maybe 20-25 feet and chalky. Once the tide shifted it was awesome, flat seas and 50-60 feet of vis. Also there was 2 knot current at least on the edge of the reef but that chilled out as you headed away from the drop off.
Even though the conditions where excellent we couldn’t find a fish to save our lives. We drifted miles and miles and didn’t see anything. I didn’t see one legal black grouper all day, and only saw 2 legal muttons one of which I shot. It was pretty amazing really drifting along and only seeing bait fish, crevelle jacks, illegal permit, and jewfish. Finally we went in shallow and shot some hog fish for dinner and Brain shot a nice porgy.
Some other interesting stuff happened though. Brian saw his first hammerhead shark, we also had a pod of dolphins swim in to check us out. We had some sort of pigeon land on the boat to rest for awhile Then when we where entering the harbor we saw what we thought was a dead turtle but wasn’t . It was a live turtle trapped by some crab pot line. Brian jumped in and cut the line and saved the turtle.
