After that we headed out to the Atlantic and into the green water. After driving for awhile we found a stretch of the bar that was blue and we drifted it for awhile. It was really fun but didn’t really produce a lot if fish. Jason took an Aj and that was about it. The clear water and school of permit, rainbow runners, and bar jacks made it fun though. I chased around some nice dog snappers in a cave about 50 feet down, but with the current my bottom time was pretty limited and I couldn’t get them. Next we headed west, and once we got past Boca Grande channel the water cleared. We went in to the reef and worked a big ledge. Jason got a yellow jack and I shot a 30# cobia. The water was clear but the fish were kind of scarce. There were black groupers all over but not a lot of other fish. I saw maybe one yellow jack all day, no big mangroves or muttons.

The next day Catherine, Luis and I headed out again.  Instead of messing around we headed straight west and got crystal clear water off the bat. The first big rock we dove was covered with black grouper spawning. I assume they are spawning by their strange unspooky behavior and grouping together. They really behave like different fish when they are grouped up. Hanging around the same spot, sometimes even swimming toward you in a group. Other then the black grouper there wasn’t much else on the rocks: tiny mangroves,  lanes, and big yellow tail. Since our time was limited we didn’t want to run further west so we went south to the deeper water. We didn’t really see much there, great vis not a lot fish. We saw permit, amberjacks, big black grouper but everything else was small or not really shootable. I did actually see a couple of muttons, but in the strong current it was very hard to get a shot on them. I think maybe I should switch back to the shaft with the double wrap for these conditions.

Final day Andy, Brian Lee, Brian’s girlfriend, Luis and I went out in Andy’s boat. We went way west exploring some new stuff. The vis was great again, but again the fish were kind of scarce. We picked up some hogs, several muttons, Brian got kingfish and smaller cubera, some other stuff but nothing huge. Luis and Brian saw a huge mutton but they weren’t able to get it. I had a sail fish and lemon shark suddenly appear out of nowhere and swim in circles around me. Pretty awesome, would have been great if Cat had been there with her camera. Black and Red grouper were all over, some quite large. I really haven’t minded the grouper ban because there had always been a bunch of other stuff to chase after but these last couple trips black grouper have been sometimes the only fish we are seeing in some spots. That is kind of frustrating.

When we left at the end of the day a cold front moved in and we had to ride home in 30 knot winds. It sucked but other then that it was a good day.

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Andy recently got new shafts with the Tahitian flopper on them and they suck. He lost a bunch of fish including a a cobia, it was tough day for him. Some of the rocks that were covered in fish the other day were empty. Catherine was finally able to get back in the water after a dry spell. The unseasonably cold weather coupled with the spring wind, has made many days not worth going out. Catherine had a camera malfunction while swimming in the middle of a huge school of horse  eye jacks, which now has her talking about buying a real video camera for under water. We saw tons of nurse sharks laying around the bottom in the groups, large schools of rainbow runners, and huge horse eye jacks.

The big yellow jack I shot, broke my shooting line but I found his body with the shaft shortly thereafter so it worked out. I have been shooting the gun with a single wrap of mono and it is so much more enjoyable then dealing with all the extra line. I think I may just stick with the single wrap unless the vis is like 100 feet or when grouper open back up. I saw several grouper today a couple were around 25 pounds possibly more.

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When we hit the rocks we were excited to be able to see bottom; there was 30 or so feet of visibility. Pretty much all this past week the snorkel boats had been reporting that visibility was less then 20 feet, some days less then 10 feet. No cobia at all. We did run into the usual reef species: yellow jacks, mangroves, triggerfish, amberjack and I shot a big permit. I usually don’t take permit, in my opinion they are not that great to eat and although they are legal to spear in federal waters, I just don’t really want the hassle of explaining that to the FWC. This one was big though and I couldn’t resist. I am going to try smoking some of the meat and see how that is.

Everyone had gear break or lost. Luis broke a fin right off the bat, Riffe fins, his Riffes broke exactly like my Riffes did before. Cal had his shooting line break and lost a shaft to a yellow jack. I hit Luis’s float line with the engine and broke it. Myself and Andy were freezing, Cal was warm in his 5mm suit. I keep saying I am going to buy a 5mm suit, but then I tell myself it’s about to get warm and then it doesn’t get warm.

Cal had a reef shark attack his float and try to take some snapper from him.

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.

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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.

Some video from the past couple months, also uploader a much larger version of the video here, I suggest right clicking it and saving it to your hard drive to watch it.

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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