Spearfishing Photos

Jellyfish are gone, and water is clear

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on August 31, 2011 at 12:26 pm {2 comments}

Well been awhile since I posted on here. Have only been out a couple times and both times I didn’t have a camera with me. Catherine has had to fill in for a manager who has been away so she hasn’t been able to be out with me in a while. Hopefully this weekend she we will be out.

I went out about a week ago with Jon Paul, Brandon and their two girlfriends. We had a great trip to the gulf. I didn’t even bring my gopro because I thought the vis would be marginal. When we got out there there was 30-35 feet of vis, some of the clearest water I have ever seen out on the gulf side.

The shooting was excellent. We got out limit of red groupers and a bunch of hogs, many 3, 4 and 5 pounds. Brandon shot one that looked around 6 pounds which is great for the Keys. The amount of fish on the coral heads out there made the Atlantic side of the reef look dead in comparison. Big schools of 2-3 pound mangroves were all over. I actually felt like I could shoot a hogfish on almost every single dive if I I wanted to. Some coral heads had ten or more legal hogs on them. We got a couple dog snapper as well. We also saw a 30# black in 25 feet of water which spooked when a nearby jewfish boomed. In the afternoon the vis silted up a bit but all in all it was excellent and well worth the 40 mile drive.

Then yesterday I went out with Andy, Capt Dan and Andrew. We went out front and it was kind of cluster f**k. The water was clear but there was a nice amount of west bound current. The jellyfish were gone thank god. We went out to around 60 feet of water and started diving. We got on some fish and Andy came up with the idea of dropping a chum cage down…which sounded good but in practice we were zipping by the thing so fast that shooting fish off it was pretty tough. Long story short the line of the chum cage broke, a big moray wrapped itself around it and was trying to bite anyone who tried to retrieve it. I have to go back and get the chum cage, as it’s still sitting in 60 feet of water in front of Key West.

That wasn’t the only thing I lost though. We were diving on the rolloff in around 65 feet of water and I shot a big black, who promptly rocked up. Then while trying to untangle my gun, the crimp that attached my float line failed. We dove that spot for an hour and never saw the gun again. I have the spot marked and will have to go back with a scuba tank to look for it.

Other then that it was a fun day. Andrew shot a nice dolphin in 50 feet of water. I shot 3 muttons almost in succession in 60 feet of water. Which has got to be almost my favorite, nothing like sitting on the bottom in 60 feet of blue water calling in a mutton. Of course I left my gopro on while I searched for the missing gun and had no batteries at this point.

Don’t really have any photos from the trips but I will take a couple screen shots from the gopro. Also have some left over coral photos from the beginning of lobster season.

lobster season is open

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on August 7, 2011 at 10:54 pm {no comments}

Well lobster season opened this weekend and Cat and I went out. I usually just go out to the reef and spearfish and then catch lobsters as I see them or at the end of the day. I don’t really care about mini-season plus it was windy so I stayed home. Anyways opening of lobster season was beautiful so we went out.

The vis on the reef has been terrible so we decided to just stay inshore and get lobsters. Last time I lobstered inshore for mini-season we were exposed to all kinds of rudeness, including some guy with tanks in 10 feet of water jumping into a coral head we were working and also when one of my friends popped a lobster out of hole some stranger rushing in and giving chase. Ever since that experience I have just gone out to the reef.

Anyways I headed out to the nearest shallow stuff out of Key West and of course it was covered with boats. Once I got closer I noticed that pretty much all the boats were on the coral that is in less then 10 feet of water. All I had to do is head out to 15 feet of water and I pretty much had everything to myself. Pretty great really, caught our limit of lobsters in a short time using minimal gas.

As much as I enjoy catching and eating lobster, I am at a loss why people try to catch a year’s worth of lobsters in two days. They load the boat with everyone they can find and then some drop off their lobsters so they can go out and catch another limit. I live on a canal I watch people do this. I guess I can kind of see why people who are here on vacation do stuff like this, because they can only dive on vacation. I just don’t understand why people who live here go so hogwild on a couple days and then don’t dive the rest of the season. You can catch lobsters all season long, I mean obviously it’s not as easy but still. Is it really just about getting tails, I mean don’t people enjoy hunting and catching them at all. Cat & I just had a laugh at the amazing amount of gear involved in pulling lobster out of ten feet of water. Boats anchored up and out jumped divers towing 100 ft of bright yellow hookah tube.

I remember when I first came here and was exposed to mini-season and all the visitors talking about “limited out, limited out , got my limit, “ blah blah, all proud like it’s a big accomplishment. It’s kind of funny now.

More Terrible Vis

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on August 4, 2011 at 5:48 pm {2 comments}

The vis is terrible, I guess it isn’t terrible further west at least that is what I hear.

Went out two days this week and both were pretty weak. Went out with Andy, Andrew and Rob one day. We were going to practice freediving out in the blue water. Andy is all stoked on freediving again because he just took the advanced PFI course. I have never taken a freedive class, I doubt I will take it. It’s not that I am really good at freediving, the deepest I ever dove was 90 feet, which is shallow compared to depths some people dive in a class. I just never dive with anyone who makes me wish I could dive deeper. I pretty much always can dive as deep as anyone else wants to dive, so I never really feel like I am missing out or anything.

Anyways we hoped that there would be crystal clear water offshore, there wasn’t. In 650 feet of water there was like 60 feet of vis. Then we ran into a pallet which totally distracted me from practicing freediving. The pallet had some schoolie dolphin on it, a couple triple tail, hundreds of trigger and file fish, and 3 or 4 mini wahoo. I tried to shoot the baby wahoo but they were too spooky. We hung out in this mass gathering of fish for an hour or 2, hoping something big would come in but nothing did. It would have been awesome if Cat was there for the photos. After a bit we headed to reef and it was pretty much undivable the water was so dirty.

Then yesterday I went out again with Alfonse, Artmedies and Cat. We headed to the gulf side. The first patches we hit the vis was ok , maybe 20 feet of vis with lots of algae in the water. To my surprise there was some fish on spot. We got a couple cero mackerels and a big mangrove. I actually saw 3 legal black groupers and about a dozen shorts. I could not get a shot on any of the groupers. The water was only 15 feet deep and with the vis, I was right on top of them before I saw them. I just couldn’t get the shot together. Plus that area I think had been really hit for mini-season. One of the blacks had a spear wound in his side that looked fresh. There were big schools of bait and a school of crevelle jacks came in and surrounded us.

After that we made the mistake of leaving that area. First we went out to some wrecks where the vis was terrible. Then we ran west for more terrible vis. Then we came home and stopped at kingfish shoals to grab a few hogs for dinner and called it a day.

Summer Sucks

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on July 20, 2011 at 12:57 am {no comments}

Been a while since I posted and frankly there hasn’t been a whole lot to post. The water around Key West is green; there is some type of algae bloom. The water is piss warm like 89 degrees in some spots. Most large fish are absent. There are about million mangroves all over place, along with schools of school master snappers.

I haven’t shot any real nice fish in a while. A couple muttons , a little red, a couple yjs. I have been trying to get something going and run far out west just to see something different but with the vis reports coming in have not really motivated me to get out. A couple days I went out to the vandenberg and practiced freediving. I get bored kind of easily doing that, unless the vis is awesome which it hasn’t been.

I took some photos of Cat diving over the past couple weeks and am posting them up because frankly I haven’t shot any fish worth taking a photo of.

Oh yeah we went to the Busch wreck to dive it one day and as usual the vis on it was terrible. Did they research the area that they sank that in at all? I mean I have been to that wreck like 4 or 5 times now and every time the vis is terrible once you get down anywhere near the wreck.

I played around with some hdr effects on some of the photos, looks ok depending on the photo.

Nice Water no fish

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on June 20, 2011 at 1:11 pm {no comments}

Went out with Cat yesterday and there was great conditions but no fish. We dove the reef and bar. I was kind of tempted to run out to the Marquesas but with gas at $4 a gallon and only two of us diving I stayed close. I saw one yellow jack all day, maybe two spooky groupers, and a school of giant bonitos that would not let me near them. I also saw another 60+ pound king fish but could not get the shot on him.

All the schools of jacks are gone. The giant schools of permit, horse eye , yellow and amber jacks have beat feet apparently to deeper water. Other then the one giant king fish I don’t think I saw a fish over 15# all day. The giant schools of huge triggers are gone as well. The big schools of ceros are not around as well, although if I remember right there is a time in early summer when they appear again. Everyone loves to dive in the summer, the water is clear and wind is calm, but there just aren’t a lot fish.

On the upside the vis was up to 65 feet and there was almost no current and we had flat seas. Cat and I were able to both drift with the boat, and even though there wasn’t much action, Cat was able to practice free diving which made her happy.

Giant Smoker King

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on June 14, 2011 at 1:07 pm {no comments}

Well went out this week with Cat and shot a monster fish, a 69# King mackerel which is huge for the species and is 6# smaller then the current world record. I was diving in 45 feet of water when the fish swam up behind me with a smaller friend with it. I happened to be on the bottom looking for reef fish, so I was really lucky. There is no way I would have been able to swim down on him from the surface. I actually chased the fish for a moment on the bottom. Apparently it was big enough not to be scared by me following it. I shot it in the tail and it took of like a rocket, then I followed it with the boat for a minute. When I got to the float, the line was loose and I thought it had torn off. When I put more pressure on the line I could feel the weight, so I jumped in with a second gun and shot the fish again. This second shot tore out when I tried to lift the fish so I ended up having to shoot it again while pulling it off the bottom to keep it away from a nurse shark. When we got it in the boat we had to break its tail to fit it in the fish box.

After that I shot a grouper and a couple triggers. I saw several more grouper and snapper but had no interest in them. I drifted and checked one of my deeper spots and it had a couple nice grouper on it and a ton of bait. Will probably try to go back there next week or something.

Another day I went out with Cat and her friend Stephanie. The water was clear and seas were calm but I saw almost no fish. Stephanie tried spearfishing for the first time and appears to be a bit of a natural at it. Her first shot she spined a decent keys hogfish. We dove several spots and I saw mostly just mangrove snapper all over the place, but not really any other fish. The lack of current I think, keeps the yellow jacks from schooling up and feeding. I saw a couple of yellow jacks, but they were alone and moving fast in one direction, not circling and curious at all. I saw a couple barely legal grouper but did not bother with them.

Clear Water not a lot of fish

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on June 7, 2011 at 4:03 pm {no comments}

Well the the vis is back. After a couple weeks of terrible vis , then a week away, then a week of 20+ knot winds I finally got out. The conditions are awesome but we did not boat a lot of fish. The vis was 50-70 feet most of the day and there was almost no current, which sounds great but like I said we did not find a lot of fish. Actually I saw a lot of big groupers and snappers but was unable to put any in the boat.

After the first week of grouper season it seemed like all the groupers had been sucked off the reef, well now it seems like they are back but only the smartest ones. I saw numerous nice blacks up to around 30# I also saw a few cubera snappers one of which was probably pushing 40# but I could not get a shot on any of them. You would think the lack of current would be a great advantage but with the crystal clear water I am not so sure. The groupers see you from really far away, and you cannot use the current to carry you on the dive. So the distance you can follow them horizontally is much less without the current at your back. Either way it was really fun .

I had hoped to shoot a ton of triggers or yellow jacks but there wasn’t really any around, they seem to prefer current. There was a lot of big mangroves out there. I shot a couple but personally don’t really like to eat them, so I left the rest alone.

Catherine and I had a big bull shark swim up on us which was kind of sketchy, they move so much more menacingly then the reef sharks. We had numerous jewfish encounters, with them trying to steal our fish. At one point I shot a big chub and cut it up to see if anything would come in on its falling body and the jew fish actually swam away from it.

Green Water has moved in

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on May 10, 2011 at 11:56 am {no comments}

Well there has been some pretty good diving the past couple weeks, but Catherine had to work most of the days so I don’t have a lot of photos. I recently purchased a gopro camera which is actually working out pretty well. I figured it’s tiny and I can wear it on my head so it’s something I can bring out and use when Catherine is at work. It takes a little getting used to and you have to replace the lens it comes with with a flat lens but other then that it has been great. The stills from videos it takes are pretty weak compared to the photos we get with the e-pl1 but it’s better then nothing, and it also can ride with me deeper then Catherine can dive. The thing that is kind of cool about the stills from the gopro is that they are about as close to the fish being shot as you can get. The quality is on the level of a point and shoot and without raw the photos are pretty weak but I’ll post them anyway.

We had a great couple of days shooting huge trigger fish a couple weeks ago, big fish up to 12 pounds. Lou and Albie dove with me and we had a great time and great vis but no camera. We saw several huge kingfish, I shot a small one and have been eating smoked fish to the point of getting sick of it. I guess it’s better I didn’t get a big one. The one day we had muttons swimming up from 110 feet to eat chum we got a couple but saw many more. The current was ripping and diving dragging a float line was extremely difficult, it was hard to dive past 50 feet let alone follow the muttons down. We saw so many grouper it was amazing. On one spot I dive down and counted six legal sized blacks looking at me.

Then we had big winds and the grouper season opened and it seems like all the groupers near Key West vanished. It was so windy on the opening day that I chose to stay home and in retrospect that was probably a mistake. Once I finally got out there it was like they were all gone.

I went out the past couple days with Catherine, her days off finally fell on some calm weather. We went out to the vandenburg and hoped to do some chumming and see what happens but being a calm day on the weekend it was covered with dive boats all day. We decided to practice free diving a bit . The lack of current was fantastic but the water was pretty dirty once you got down near the wreck, which kind of took some of the fun out of it. Catherine had a blast diving to the wreck repeatedly. I took my gun on a couple dives and shot a yellow jack for dinner. After that we came in to the reef and checked some spots, shot a couple more fish and came in.

The next day we ran a bit west to see if the water was clearer. It was not, it may have been worse. We drove a bit offshore and found some tiny dolphin on a weedline, Catherine swam with them for a little bit and took photos. After that we looked around for some clear water for a bit and found none and called it a day.

Shrimp Boats

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on April 18, 2011 at 2:09 pm {no comments}

Weather has just been too good to stay on land. Went on a trip with Nate, Corey, Robert and JT to go to the air force relay towers. We woke up super early and got out there at first light. The tower was kind of dead really no cuberas or cobia, a few jacks and snapper but not much else. There were a few permit and small ajs and tons of jewfish. The vis was fantastic and you could see the support beams clearly from the surface.

JT shot a big kingfish which took all of the line off his reel and drew in a few big bull sharks which circled us for a while.

After a bit we took off and found some shrimp boats. Unfortunately they had already dumped their trash overboard and we were unable to obtain any to use as chum. Seeing the sharks circling behind the boat, we decided to jump in. There was a huge school of skip jack tuna and hundreds of sharks. Robert cut up one of the AJs we shot at the tower and started chunking and it started to go off.

Big bonita charged right to the surface eating the chunks. Cory and I both shot one and handed them up to become more chunks. There were black fin tuna there but it was difficult to get them to come to the surface without a ton of chum. We got a few shots at the black fins but we failed. If only we had been there earlier to get the shrimp trash. Even with just the bonita chunks we were able to shoot more bonitas and a cobia. At one point there were dozens of small sharks surrounding us. You would almost have to push them out of the way to dive. The black fins would come up when the sharks were going nuts eating a bonito carcass, then once the commotion died down they would disappear again.

There were also massive bullsharks which occasionally would come up to check us out from the murk layer down below. It was probably one of the more incredible dives yet. If we only had been able to get more chum it would have been some pretty incredible shooting.

Then one day Catherine and I went out for a half day, we went to see if the trigger fish were starting to spawn yet. We found some big schools but not hundreds I was hoping for. We also marked a big bowl made of rock that was filled with little yellow tails. Circling and underneath them there was a school of 40 or more yellow jacks, a dozen big horse eye jacks, a couple amberjacks, three or four nurse sharks, and a big lemon shark. I shot a couple yellowjacks but was coming down with something and could not dive or hold my breath very good. My weakened state made it not really fun so I went in early to lie down. I also shot a 14.4# mutton probably 15# with guts in it, I’m not sure but they may have been the biggest mutton I have shot.

Awesome April Conditions

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on April 12, 2011 at 2:01 am {one comment}

Well the diving in Key West has been incredible, the water is clear everywhere. When I say everywhere, even in the harbor is clear. You can see the shrimp boat wreck in the harbor from the surface and hawks channel is clear and blue. I have only been diving here a few years and have never seen water this clear inshore. The vis on the drop off and bar has been 80 or 90 feet all day now for at least a week or more. It’s just incredible, I won’t say it’s Bahamas vis but it’s close. There is a tiny bit of chalkiness here and there, and some areas have a bit of particulate but all and all just incredible.

On top of that the fishing has been fantastic. We have been out diving the drop off and bar a few times in the last week and every day has been awesome. Big schools of yellow jacks and horse eyes are all over, and there are schools of permit in the hundreds. Sometimes the different types of jacks school up together, pretty awesome shooting a big yellowjack in the middle of a school of permit and watching hundreds of fish take off in every direction.

We dove in hawks channel some of which is really interesting but mostly all you see are grouper and since grouper season is closed it’s kind of a tease. Some spots are just covered in bait, and red and gag groupers.

This past week I have dove with Albie, Lou, Dan, Andrew and Catherine. Catherine has captured some pretty awesome photos. Although one day the weather report said it was going to be rough and Catherine tried to wear a Scopolamine Patch which basically turned her into a space cadet for the rest of the day. Of course it was flat calm instead.

Albie shot a cobia, I shot probably the biggest yellowtail I have ever shot, Dan shot yellow jacks to 20#. Actually everyone shot the hell out of the yellow jacks. Lou and I both shot 5# grey snappers, I shot a 30# kingfish and hit him the spine.

We have had at least 3 or 4 jacks eaten by huge jewfish, we have seen schools of spooky cubera snappers swimming mid column, a turtle came up to Albie and gave him a high five, I swam with four sailfish and two scalloped hammerheads. We have seen huge black grouper, some rocks on the bar will have 3 or 4 big groupers all one rock. If you like to freedive, I just can’t imagine a better time then these past couple days. (Outside of maybe shooting tunas or wahoos)