Water is getting clear again

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by on June 16, 2010 at 2:29 am {4 comments}

gulf-cobia-cal-095 Went out with Cal and Catherine the other day. We decided to go out to the gulf due to everyone saying how clear it was. First spot we checked was inshore and it was crystal clear for that area. The water was shallow and warm, and not a lot of big fish. We got some triggers, sheepshead, mangroves, a couple hogfish and a small dog snapper. Nothing big but the rocks where alive with bait and fish. Catherine took a lot of photos. After that we went out into the gulf, to a sunken barge. The vis was not as good out there but there was more fish.

First drop down Cal shot a baby cobia without a float line, which he purposely tangled in the anchor line to make sure he didn’t lose his gun. I shot it again before it tore off. Then Cal shot a permit, I would say that permit is quickly replacing amberjack as the number one fish people shoot and then do not want when we get back to the dock. I dove on the barge repeatedly but only saw jewfish and hundreds of Spanish mackerel.

After that my boat wouldn’t start, but then did after some monkeying around with it. Since I really did not want to get sea towed in from far out, I ran home. It was a short day but pretty fun anyway.

ja-and-son-011 Then Yesterday Catherine and I went out for a half day with Jason and his son. We left the dock around 2 and came back around 6. We went in front of Key West and finally the water was clear, after weeks of being dirty. Catherine was wearing Jason’s dive watch and was excited to be able to see how deep she was actually diving.

Jason and his son shot a bunch hogfish, red grouper and yellow jacks. Jason finally shot two fish with his double gun. Jason builds spearguns and built a gun that shoots two shafts and has a double trigger. He seems to think it the greatest thing ever. I think it looks like a royal pain in the ass. With the number of times I have seen him have issues with it, it really doesn’t interest me. I get frustrated enough reloading simple guns sometimes. The gun might work ok with freeshafts on scuba or something, but I really don’t think it’s suitable to freedive with. I know in theory it sounds great but I like to keep things simple.

I shot a big mangrove off the towers on the vandenburg and also got a red grouper on patch coral on the reef. I had 6 foot long reef shark come up and hang out with me on the vandenburg. I really should have taken a photo. Not sure what I was thinking. He came right up on my fins and then went to see if my float was something to eat.

You could probably have shot a similar mangrove on the reef, or even on an inshore patch in 10 feet of water, but would that have been as much fun as diving 50 feet or so and shooting him off the tower of a wreck, in 60-70 foot vis? For me it wouldn’t have been.  Some people say that they don’t care the conditions as long as they are shooting a lot of fish, but that doesn’t really scale out for me. Yeah, I like to shoot fish but honestly I would prefer shooting less fish in deeper clear water then shooting a bunch of little fish in shallow dirty water.

Doldrums of summer

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by on June 10, 2010 at 12:40 pm {one comment}

two-for-one-097 Went out diving the past couple days with a few people. All and all we just really haven’t been doing that great on fish recently.   The water has been warm although kind of dirty. Went out with Jason, Andy, Eddie and Catherine one day. We tried to go west but the water got real dirty. We dove the bar for a bit but the fish just didn’t really seem to be there. We got some yellow jacks, Andy shot a grouper. Eddy had to save my yellow jack from a couple of big nurse sharks that were trying to eat it. The goat fish seem to be spawning again, mangroves are starting to stack up in large numbers on the reef.

Fishing was kind of slow, but it was an ok day anyway. I shot two yellow jacks at the same time by accident which was pretty sweet. Catherine got to spend some time in the shallows taking photos of hogfish. Andy has been obsessed with diving in the shallows lately. I don’t really like it, there are tons of fish but they tend to be small and the water is dirty.

two-for-one-148 The next day I went out with a boat load of people , Andy, Kevin from Hawaii, Romaine from France, and Josh and Brian from West Palm. We hit the wrecks out in front of Key West and did some diving along the reef line. The wrecks were pretty much deserted: the amberjacks have pretty much moved out, it seems.  Vis was 30-50 feet so it was decent. All the new guys who came were excellent divers and could dive much deeper then I am used to diving. I tried following Romaine down to video tape him shooting something off the deck of a wreck at around 75 feet and quickly realized he can hold his breath much longer then I can.

We had a lot of fun with some reef sharks that were very interested in our catch. One bumped into Andy while he was gutting a mackerel out. We shot a lot of fish but nothing out of the ordinary. Big mangroves were all over.  I saw one that had to be over 10# which is large for here but could not get him. Grouper were scarce. I only saw two legal fish all day both of which bolted when they saw me. I think the whole boat only shot a couple grouper. We shot yellow jacks , margates, mangrove snapper, cero mackerel, permit, mutton snapper, and grouper.

Fishing just seems kind of slow lately, although I had one friend say they crushed them in gulf but then another said they went to the gulf and there was a ton of algae and it sucked.