Well the wind finally died for a couple days and we went out to the Atlantic. I am beginning to wonder if the Atlantic side of Key West is ever going to be clear again. Most of the vis on the reef was less then 20 feet, some places more like 10 feet of vis. Its been dirty in front of Key West for 3 weeks at least maybe 4 weeks.

We went out for a half day: Lou, Rafi, Albie and me. The vis on the reef sucks as did the bar at Sand Key.  Once we got west of Western the bar was ok for a few hours, but then as the tide went out that turned bad as well. Those couple hours on the bar were awesome.  You could see fish on the bottom at 40 feet, it felt great to actually dive a little since everything we dove in the Gulf recently has been pretty shallow. We shot triggerfish, muttons and Albie shot a big mangrove. We shot cero mackerel and a couple hogs. We didn’t get a lot of fish but it was really fun anyway. As the vis got worse, I saw a big silhouette under me and dove on it. Luckily it did not run and once I got down to its level I saw it was a nice kingfish. I shot it just behind the gill and it took off with my float. Not knowing if it was going to rip out after some struggle I used Lou’s gun to shoot it again. When we landed it we noticed at some point in the past a shark had bit it. The mackerel went 34#.  After that the water was getting dirty and the sun was low so it was even worse, so we went in.

The next day I had big plans to go deep and chum a lot. I always talk about deep chumming but we never do it. The vis is always no good or there is too much current, or Hawks Channel is clear and it is never clear so we have to dive it. There is always a reason not to do it, but the real reason is has probably more to do with the chance of failure and not getting anything, while diving the reef guarantees fish (although now that grouper is closed the only guarantee is that they will be small and something you have shot a hundred times before). Well this day I was going to do it regardless. The reef vis was terrible but out in 130 feet of water it was divable, maybe 35-40 feet of green vis with lots of bits of stuff in the water.  We started off with some blocks of menhaden chum, and quickly added chopped cuda to the slick.

To be honest the fish were going nuts, yellow tails everywhere. There were small amberjacks and almaco jacks, cero mackerel, even a big black grouper appeared around 65 feet down.  We had a really great time but it did not produce anything we had hoped for. The water was dirty so I had little hope of a wahoo.  We did kind of hope to see some black fin tunas but none showed up. Although overall it was kind of a bust, if the water was clear, maybe the gulf stream further in, current going east west instead of south, it showed potential. It was also fun to dive a little deeper then I usually dive. I was diving like crap, 60 feet felt hard, I don’t know if its because I haven’t dove deeper in awhile or perhaps because I was cold or maybe the dirty water. Whatever, it was still a fantastic time.

I have been shooting a new reef gun which has been auditioning as a replacement for my 130 rail gun. The gun is built by Jason Tiller (He should have a website I could send you to but he does not for some reason) it is an enclosed track gun (nice but unnecessary) designed to mimic my rail gun length and shaft size. I have to say the gun shoots great, I don’t have it dialed in like rail gun yet, but shot a lot of fish with it over the last couple days.  The gun is made for two bands and a 7.5mm shaft and it has been ballasted to absorb recoil and I say again it shoots great. The enclosed track, make reloading way faster then the open muzzle I had before and frankly I am in love with this gun. I just need to sit down with a school of spanish mackerel and get the aiming spot on, it swings a little different then my rail gun so I am not quite as dead on with little targets which are constantly changing direction.

Went out on long run(long run for me) with everyone yesterday. Cat, Albie, Raffi and Lou joined me. We headed out past the Marqusas and found dirty water. When we got to Cosgrove shoal it was divable. There was maybe 25 feet of vis, but within an hour or so it quickly dropped to 10-15 feet and we gave up on the reef. It sucks that it was dirty, we got 3 muttons in less then hour, we probably would have done really well if it was clear. After some debate we headed to the gulf, what the hell, the vis couldn’t get much worse.

After a 10 mile run from Cosgrove we arrived at the target wrecks in the quicksands, vis was top to bottom so everyone was excited. As we arrived at the wreck we noticed one issue, the current was cranking. At least 3 knots of current. It took pretty much every bit of strength to stay on the wreck and it was almost impossible to dive and shoot the gun. After a bit of frustration we moved to another wreck, the current was a bit less but not that much. Lou pretty much just blew off the wreck and off into the distance. Albie and Cat barely held on, the first drift was off . The next drift I hit a small cobia and after that we moved on.

We headed out into the gulf and checked a big rock pile at Ellis rock. I got nothing but Lou got a 6# hog and Albie got another mutton. After that we ran to another wreck, this one had nothing to shoot except for lionfish. There was a huge jewfish in the wreck but he didn’t come out for a photo. After that it was getting late so we ran back toward Key West. We stopped on some coral heads on the way in and got a couple more nice hogs and some large mangroves. We checked the Alexander wreck but the vis sucked so we didn’t stay long. We stopped at contrell and it was loaded with mangroves but nothing else.

Well Brian and Albie have been visiting this past week and we have had terrible dive conditions. The water has been green and cold, and the lack of fish on the Atlantic side has been very frustrating. We dove the reef line all around in front of Key West and to the west but didn’t really get much. Albie got a 27# kingfish but other than that, we were really scraping out there. We checked the wrecks out front and couldn’t even pull a nice AJ off them. We finally gave up and did some inshore stuff. We had a good time and actually caught some decent lobsters. Not sure of the weight on them but I would guess they were 2-2.5# lobsters which are nice for down here.

We also got some small hogfish and some porgies. Albie opted for the pole spear to make it more challenging and of course ran into a 25# cubera in 12 feet of water which evaded him. Catherine had a blast taking photos of bait and Christmas tree worms. We deep fried the lobster which was delicious.