posted by admin on Jul 29
A little video from our trip to NJ, filmed on the shrewsbury rocks off of Sea Bright
Archive for July, 2009
posted by admin on Jul 28
Back in Key West, just got home and I talked to our friend Jason, he was shooting a tournament and didn’t have a boat for the second day. At first I wasn’t going to go but Catherine convinced me and what the heck calm seas. People had said the visibility was bad but it wasn’t where we were. We had over 50 feet pretty much the whole time. We went out to the bar to try and shoot some jacks or a mackerel. The mangroves were spawning which is pretty cool. I don’t like to eat them, so it’s more of just a scenic thing.
Our first drop Jason picked up a 15# king fish and then a horse eye jack. A bit later I hit a 20# king fish. Both were in around 50 feet of water, Jason’s was mid column and mine was about 10 feet off the bottom. It was a short day and we came in around 2 pm.
Jason got his fish for the tournament and actually got third place. It was a really small tournament and free diving only. I think I would have entered it if I wasn’t away for one of the days it took place.
Also kneeled on fire coral which went right through my lyrca suit, like it wasn’t there.
posted by admin on Jul 22
Was visiting family in NY this past week and took a little trip to New Jersey to do some spearfishing. We headed to Seabrite which is near Sandy Hook, and went out with captain Albie aboard the charter boat “the long shot”. We headed out in the morning and had great weather, calm seas and mostly sunny. The sheer numbers of people harvesting various sea life down there is pretty amazing, for a Tuesday. There were party boats, charter boats, sportfishers, dozens of clam boats and perhaps lobster/crab boats, the area was bustling with life. We rounded the end of Sandy hook and headed back south to an area called shrewsbury rocks.
When we got there I couldn’t help but feel a bit skeptical: the surface water was brown. When I jumped in Albie pointed to some bunker breaking on the surface near the boat. I swam towards it but stopped once I realized I couldn’t see the end of the 80cm gun I was carrying. I actually couldn’t see my fins. The surface vis was probably around 3 maybe 4 feet. I tipped up and swam to the bottom gun pointed out in front of me, Once I was down 15-20 feet, I could see hundreds of star fish on the bottom. In the bottom the vis opened up to around 10-15 feet. I hit bottom and the bottom was covered with some type of green growth, that reminded me of some type of pine moss. The bottom was green and covered with small fish. Short black sea bass and short black fish surrounded me.
After a few dives I shot my first fish, a triggerfish. Shortly after that we were surrounded by triggerfish. The 80cm gun was almost too much, I had a double wrap of mono on it, which was too much. So I grabbed Albie’s polespear from the boat. I need to use a pole spear because I am headed to the Bahamas shortly. After a short period of learning I started just plugging triggerfish after triggerfish. The three prongs on the pole spear seem to just stick to triggers, and I don’t think one fish I shot pulled off. At one point some bluefish were swimming with the triggers and I tried to pole spear one but ended up a bit short.
On the boat Gabi and Catherine were catching triggers, black sea bass and Dogfish on hook and line. Catherine jumped in with her 3mm but it was too cold for her. There were so many triggers around us at one point Pat shot two triggers at one time. You would hit bottom and look up and there would be a wall of triggerfish. I also pole speared a Black fish, and Pat collected a few other black fish. The black fish are spawning and you are only allowed one per person on the boat. There are no regulations on triggerfish in Jersey waters.
posted by admin on Jul 7
Went out spearfishing for a half day on Tuesday with Catherine and Brian and it kind of sucked. We drove out past Sand Key and the water looked like green milk, we drove past western dry rocks and it didn’t get any better. so we went out deeper. There was blue water once you got out to 150-180 feet, we drove around for awhile out to 500 feet of water and didn’t see any signs of life. We checked the noaa buoy and there was some bait on it but that was all, current was around 5 knots. We came in to like 8 feet of water and checked some spots to see if the lobsters where there, there was some but we didn’t see any massive quantities. We shot a trigger and a yellow jack for dinner and came in. Vis was 15 feet or so.
