posted by admin on Mar 9

Finally after weeks of terrible weather and water conditions we got a break and got to go out in the boat. Andy, Lou, Catherine and I headed out yesterday on Andy’s boat. We had uncertain conditions, so we hoped for the best. When we hit the reef edge we were pleasantly surprised with 25-30 feet of visibility on the main reef. We checked the bar but the vis seemed actually worse out there. When I jumped in, the water was cold, not sure how cold but too cold to be wearing a 3mm wetsuit in my opinion.  The first couple spots we hit kind of sucked, little mangroves, the occasional forbidden grouper, a couple of ceros, really not much in the way of fish.

Because of the weak vis we headed in a bit shallower, 25-35 feet of water and hit some big rock piles. When Luis and I first hit the water and cleared the first rock, I saw two cobia laying on the sand and yelled to him.  I got over top of one of them and waited for him to get over the other before I took my shot. Right before we dove down a big nurse shark swam through and spooked both of them.  Luis hit his mid water and took off in one direction.  I hit mine with a gut shot and it took off in the other.  After a few feet it tore off but the fish kept swimming along the rocks so I followed it, reloaded and shot it again.  This time it took off in the other direction pulling me with it.  Andy had dropped some flashers in and my float line quickly found them and tangled in them.  While I was cruising along , there were nurse sharks all over.  Then I started seeing other types of sharks mid water column, first a couple big reef sharks and then a bull shark, then a bigger bull shark, all swirling around me.  I then realized that the sharks were going after the flashers, and tried to untangle them.  I called for the boat but they were tied up with the other cobia.  I got the flashers untangled and the sharks backed away.

The next drift brought more cobia, and more sharks.  Andy shot a nice yellow jack and the sharks turned on like you hit a switch.  They went from drive bys to 5 sharks attacking the yellow jack at once.  After that the sharks would not let you shoot fish: they ate whatever you shot.  Andy shot another big yellow jack and the sharks ate it and took his shaft.  One bull got so aggressive that Lou poked him in the face with a spear.  On the next drift the same bull charged me and at the last second backed off.  I’m pretty sure my gun would have blow him away if needed but still, after that we dove kind of back to back, and the sharks didn’t seem to want to get near us when we were in a group.

The rocks we were diving were covered with fish.  In addition to the sharks and cobia, there where big schools of barracuda, some of the fish weighting 30-40 pounds, groups of big permit, and big schools of jack crevelles.  Even a big jewfish came out to see what the commotion was about, and nurse sharks everywhere.  In some spots there would be 3 or 4 nurse sharks just laying around next to each other almost in a pile.  After the action cooled down, we all realized that we were cold and headed in.

posted by admin on Feb 24

Well when I went to bed it was raining and the wind was blowing over 20 knots and when I woke up it was flat calm and sunny, so I loaded up the boat.  At such short notice in the middle of the week, there aren’t too many people to call to go out, so Catherine and I headed out by ourselves.  I checked the national weather service site and it said the gulf stream was only a mile from looe key and two miles from Sand Key.  I assumed that this meant we would most likely have blue water on the reef, or at least not far off shore.  I was wrong.

We headed to check the Vandenberg.  It’s probably one of the closest cool things to dive and the reef nearbyis often pretty good for spearing.  When we got there I looked down the moorings and there was around 20 feet of vis.  We motored out to around 250-300 feet and the water was still pretty crappy.   We came in to the shallows and ate lunch.  While we were eating, a huge ocean sunfish swam behind the boat, had to have been 6 or 7 feet tall.  We tried following it with the boat to get a video of it but we failed.  The vis was bad and it didn’t seem to like the boat.

Then we suited up and jumped in a shallow patch.  As soon as I jumped in there was a bunch of cero mackerel around me.  I have eaten enough smoked fish for awhile and passed on them.  Then a train of yellow jacks came through, must have been around 60 of them.  I tried waiting for Catherine to get to me to get a video of the jacks but they passed.  Catherine swam around and found a huge moray eel and harassed it for while taking its picture.  I saw a cubera snapper, a small one, and I tried to get him but as soon as I got close I spooked a black grouper, which in turn spooked him.  Then the yellow jacks were back and I stoned one about 15 pounds.  There were a couple huge jacks in the school but they kept their distance as soon as they saw me.  I also shot a large mangrove.

After that we sun bathed for bit, or basically just sat around and talked.  It’s odd that people just go boating isn’t it?  I mean they just drive a boat out in the ocean and then sit in it and talk.   Maybe it’s more odd to swim around with essentially giant rubber band guns trying to impale fishes?  While we were chatting a tired bird landed on the boat and we named him “Charlie”.   He got to rest for awhile before we went in and thanked us by crapping on the boat.

I was shooting a Tahitian flopper shaft, and have not been that happy with it. Firstly let me just say the floppers on Sumora Shafts break off.  I broke one once and thought it was just bad luck or whatever, but now I have broken 2 floppers on two sumora shafts.  I broke one on a nice grouper maybe 6 months ago and now this week I lost a medium sized yellow jack because the flopper broke.  Anyways I re-rigged the sumora  shaft with a rob allen flopper (which appears to be made out of heavier metal, I might add) but put it on the wrong side.  So now I have a Tahitian flopper instead of Hawaiian.  At first I thought it shot fine, but I have missed a few shots now which seemed like really easy shots.  I I think I might pull it off and put it back the other way.  Not sure if it’s messed up because it’s on top (which shouldn’t affect the shooting) or if maybe in the process of tuning the flopper I bent it.  I have missed 3 or 4 close shots using a single band now, and although I miss pretty often anyway, that seems like too many in too short of a time.

Also we found this recipe for lobsters, pretty awesome if you don’t mind eating something that is like 800 calories a serving – Lobster Pasta.

posted by admin on Feb 16

Catherine, Andy, Cally, Fenway and I went out yesterday. Even though the winds have been blowing every which direction we found visibility up 70 feet at at high tide. The calm winds and clear water were quite a relief after being stuck in the house for a week or so. The only downside was it was around 58 degrees in the morning , which is pretty cold weather for going swimming.

We started our day free diving the Vandenburg. In addition to the hundreds of barracuda schooling on it there was a good number of amberjack. I shot one of the Ajs about 50 feet down and had it run right down the to the deck of the wreck. This was kind of a reminder of why I need to get a bigger float.  I am not sure I would have been able to stop an Aj over 40 pounds from running to the bottom with my gun. Luckily this one stopped at the deck which is around 70 feet down and I was able to horse him to the surface. I should have weighed him to see if he beat last week’s 37# aj but I forgot.

Then we moved west, checked another wreck but it was covered with cold milk water, once you got about 50 feet down. Then we checked some rocky areas on the bar but found nothing too exciting. Some triggerfish, mangroves a few cero mackerel. I took one triggerfish for some white meat and moved on. Then we checked some shallow stuff, nothing really except freezing cold water.

Then we went back deep and hit the mother lode of trash fish.  On top of rocks in 50-60 feet of water there was boiling water from huge schools of bar jacks, and under the bar jacks there were hundreds of yellow jacks from 8-15 pounds. I have never seen that many yellow jacks, at least not that size. To top that off under the yellow jacks there were amber jacks from 20-60 pounds.  We shot too many fish. We shot our limit of amberjack, Andy shot one that was 50-60# and it broke his line and took off with a shaft. Every yellow jack we shot would be swarmed by his buddies and the amberjack too, it was pretty ridiculous actually. We had a huge black grouper come out and try to eat one of the yellow jacks, like he was a jewfish.  Fired up nurse sharks were chasing our fish up to the surface in 55 feet of water. I can’t believe with all the blood and commotion more sharks didn’t show up.  I also shot a rainbow runner, I don’t know if it’s a big one or what, but it’s the biggest one I have ever seen.

After that it started to get dark, so we headed in, finally a day on the water after all those windy days. Any want any smoked jack, let me know.

posted by admin on Feb 4

Went out  yesterday and the day before, and on Tuesday Luis and I went out. Originally Luis had a doctor’s appointment, but the 6 knot winds and potential for shooting wahoo caused him to reschedule it. When he arrived in the morning he said “have plenty of time for doctor appointments when I am dead”.  We headed out west and found clear water but no sun. The water vis was very good like 60-70 feet but it lacked the crystal clear gulfstream blue quality that was apparent every other time we have seen wahoo. This was kind of disappointing and we didn’t see any all day. We drifted all day in water 50-240 feet deep. The first half of the day we passed on reef fish but when afternoon hit we just started shooting stuff.

The amount of fish we saw was pretty incredible, although most were not considered “quality fish”. Drifting in from the drop-off in waters 70-90 feet we would be greeted by huge schools of triggerfish, spade fish and King Mackerel.  All these fish would come in mass at the flashers we were using. I saw one school of king fish that must have had 50 fish in it, and on another drift a few miles away Luis saw a school of kingfish that had hundreds in it. We shot four king fish.  The school of mackerel had relatively small fish in the 7-10 pound range.  I also shot a 37# pound Amberjack (gutted), not really a big amberjack but a decent one for freediving in the Keys, and the largest I have shot so far. Luis had brought out a big riffe bluewater gun, rigged to kill something massive. Although we saw nothing massive tested it out on the king fish and he was happy how well it performed.

One of highlights of the day was Luis saw a group of cubera snapper in the water column in around 80 feet of water. He didn’t get one but it was pretty cool to see regardless.

The next day I went out with Andy and Brian from West Palm Beach. Brian is captain of the USA spearfishing team and an instructor for a free diving class. We dove some reef and wrecks in front of Key West. It was a half day and it was dark but the vis was still good so it was a good time. We didn’t shoot anything that exciting. I got a small cubera and Brian also shot a cubera but some sharks came and ate it. We shot some yellow jacks, and snapper.

Probably the most interesting thing we saw was massive amounts of black grouper on the reef. I guess I shouldn’t say massive after seeing videos of some of the spawning gags up north, but a lot of black grouper compared to what I have ever seen diving so far. One ledge had one fish that was pushing 35 pounds and 3 other fish all in the 10-15 pound range next to it. It just hung out and looked at me, I could have shot it 3 times. Seemed like everywhere we dove there was a black grouper looking at us.