posted by admin on Nov 26

Spent the last couple days on the water.  First on Wednesday Catherine, Luis, and Mike went out with me. We ran out to the drop off in front of Key West and were greeted with 80 feet of visibility and very little current. We anchored in 60 feet of water and threw in a chum block. It was kind of disappointing. Not much showed up this time, a few little muttons, some mackerel, and in the distance Mike saw a shark with two short cobia on it but it stayed away. Mike and I both saw a couple blacks but couldn’t get them in the boat. So after a bit we pulled anchor and headed west.

We hit some rocks in 50 feet of water, and I took a 20 foot shot on a roughly 25# grouper but just grazed his back. He was already running, so there wasn’t going to be a better shot on him. We saw a lot of fish, Mike missed a pair of cuberas. We saw a bunch of sharks, a huge school of horse eye jacks, and a jewfish the size of a small car. Then Mike shot a 33# Amberjack, which had a buddy with him.  I probably could have got a long shot on the buddy but instead put a second shot into Mike’s fish. We also saw a big black grouper over 30#.  It ran from me towards Mike , then took off. Mike said he saw a wound on its one side that looked like someone had speared it.

As we were going to the next spot, we saw something big swimming on the surface behind the boat. So we turned around and ran back.  It turned out to be a 25 foot long whale shark. Mike jumped in with the camera and the rest of us struggled to get our gear on. Unfortunately the shark didn’t seem to like people and slowly dropped deeper in the water column and took off. I had thought by seeing other people’s videos that the sharks just ignored people but apparently not.

Then we went a bit further west.  Luis and I jumped in on top of a school of amberjack. Luis shot one and I shot another. It’s going to take forever to smoke all this fish.  The three of us worked a couple more rocks in around 50 feet of water and picked up some smaller random fish, trigger fish, grey snapper, hogfish. Then we noticed the approaching storm, and headed in. We made it about halfway home before it hit, and the ride in really sucked. 30 knot winds, rain, it was terrible, but we made it.

The next day we woke up and saw it was flat calm out, so Catherine and I debated going out. Then Luis called so we were going, then Jason appeared at our door right before we left, so he jumped on too. We didn’t go far, just in front of Key West. We anchored in 65 feet and used the rest of the chum I had. Again no big payoff, tons of bait , yellowtails and cero mackerel but nothing exciting. I shot a small black grouper but he was actually ahead of the boat and there as soon as I jumped in, so I could have got him without any chum anyway. After a little bit we moved into 30-40 feet of water and drifted. We shot some small fish, mangrove snapper, hogfish, yellow jacks. Nothing big, conditions were great though, good vis, little current.

At the last spot there were rocks with a bunch of crevices that I had seen a couple grouper sneak up in, so I shot a small barracuda and chopped him up, to see if the grouper would come back out. They didn’t, but a fired up reef shark came in and snatched up all the pieces, including a couple which I had just dropped . It was pretty awesome having shark swimming and feeding that close, you could tell the shark recognized us and totally knew we were not food, but I kept the gun on him just in case anyway.

Then we headed home, as the winds were picking up and anther front moving in.

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posted by admin on Nov 23

Saturday Catherine, Jason and I went out spearfishing. We tried to find wahoo but didn’t have any luck and spent hours drifting in blue nothingness. It was kind of fun but it got a bit boring. I think we need to anchor and set up a chum slick, but Jason said last time he set up a chum slick in that area he was rushed by a bunch of bull sharks. He doesn’t seem eager to repeat the experience.

After a bit we did some drifts over the reef in around 50 feet of water. I saw a nice cubera snapper around 30#.  I might have been able to take a long shot on him, but tried to get a little closer and he bolted. We picked up some little fish, hog fish, mangroves and then moved in to a bit shallower water. We started working a ledge in around 35-40 feet of water and it seemed teeming with life. I chased a big dog snapper for a minute but missed him in the murk that was on the bottom. The water was really clear until about 10 feet off the bottom then it turned freezing and brown. I was getting a bit frustrated at this point. But I like seeing nice fish and missing them, a lot more than seeing nothing, like a bunch of trips the past couple months. The waters are cooling and the spearfishing is so much better in the winter. Jason picked up a few more snapper and hog fish, then we moved to find some clearer water.

The water cleared as we headed east, and we stopped on a few of the humps. There is an area on the reef that seems to have dozens of coral/rock humps surrounded by sand. Not sure what causes the bottom to be like that but it can be a productive area to fish. The humps are small like the size of a small house, so if the current is light you can anchor and a couple divers can work the whole thing in 20 minutes, then pull anchor and repeat on the next one. They might have a few good fish, they might deserted . I didn’t have my gps #s with me, so we just drove around until we sighted one of the “humps”. We stopped on one that was pretty weak, then on the next one I got a nice grouper.  The next one was one of the best rocks I have seen on the humps but no one seemed to be home, except for unlimited mangrove snapper and goatfish. It’s funny one day the only thing there is bait fish and another there are 10 amberjacks with a nurse shark in tow, along with a couple black grouper all on one hump. I have 4 or so marked on my gps, and the 2 of the 3 we found yesterday I think I had never seen before. I am going to go out there one day and see how many of those things I can mark, that are worth jumping in on.

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posted by admin on Nov 16

Spent the weekend spearfishing with Catherine. The conditions where not that great except for the lack of current. On Saturday we drove west past Satan shoal looking for decent water but found none, so we ended up running back east and found some 25-30 foot of vis in front of Key West. I shot a medium yellow jack, a big mangrove, and a small dog snapper. Then we just headed to some shallow water and caught lobsters, we caught 8 in about an hour and probably could have limited out if we had some time, but Catherine had to work.

On Sunday Catherine and I went out and we headed east since the water seemed clearer that way. We had to run around the backside of the island because the harbor was closed for the powerboat races. First spot we jumped in on was patch reef in 30 feet.  We could see bottom with a bit of horizontal vis. Since the current was almost nonexistent we took advantage of that and anchored and started chumming.  I love it when there is no current and I can do that. It’s pretty rare the current and vis cooperate. Our plan was to shoot a bunch of cero mackerel for the smoker, but not that many showed up. I shot 4 at one spot and also two mutton snapper. Then we tried heading further east but the vis got crappier. So we headed back west and went to far and it got crappy again, real crappy, brown cold water covering everything with 10 feet off the bottom.

So back east, anchored shallow again, chummed some more and I shot two more muttons. Catherine put down the camera and shot a mangrove. Then we headed to the lobster spot hoping to clean house but when we got there the wind had stirred up the water and there was like 5 feet of vis.  I dove it for a few minutes and caught a couple lobster and then we headed in.

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posted by admin on Nov 4

Catherine, Brad, Brian and I went out west to go spearfishing on Monday.  Brad just got a a new boat:  30 foot Whitewater with two 200 horse power engines on it. The speed on the boat is amazing, I feel like my boat is putting around at 25 knots now.  It’s so nice to just cruise at 35 knots when you want to get out there, makes a world of difference.

We drove way west and similar to the trip I took west a couple weeks ago we really didn’t get a lot of fish. After a while of not seeing any grouper in the open I started checking every ledge and hole, and there wasn’t anyone home in any of them. The rocks we were diving had great relief, overhangs, swim throughs, massive bait fish populations but no big fish. We shot a little of everything: black grouper, mutton, mangroves, mackerel, triggerfish but nothing big…except a monster yellow tail Brad shot, which was like 25 or 26 inches long.

Been awhile since I had a really good day on the water, not sure what is up. Normally I just see good and fish and miss them, but lately haven’t been seeing a lot of fish. Seeing a ton of 20 inch black grouper but barely any legals. Only saw one legal that got away this last time I was out, the other legal I saw I bagged.  Not sure if I have to go deeper or shallower, or go gulf side or what.

Vis was variable.  In the morning on the high tide it was a hazy 40 feet but by the end of the day it was less then 20 on the reef out west. On the way in there was maybe 25 or feet of vis on the reef.

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