Great December Weather

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by on December 28, 2010 at 1:01 pm {2 comments}

Went out yesterday with Lou, Juan, and Rafi.  Conditions were excellent, vis was 50 plus most of the day and the trash talk in Spanish was very plentiful. It was another day where I really wish Catherine had been there for photos.  We started by doing some drifts on the reef line, on one of the first drifts we came up on a rock covered in bait with a school of yellow jacks just going nuts around mid water column. On the top of the water two huge sailfish were working the bait. The sailfish swam right up to me and popped up their sails to corral the bait some more. I called to the boat for the camera but by the time it got there the sailfish were gone. Awesome sight, the Yellow jacks working with the sails to get the bait fish.  We popped a couple of the yellow jacks and moved on.

We checked one of the wrecks that had some big fish on it the other day. There were some fish, but not many really. The water was warmer, 72 degrees up from the 68 degrees and there were some fish but nothing major. I cut up a cero mackerel and had a school of amberjack surround me eating the pieces.  I shot one and Lou shot one, one to smoke and the other to use as chum. I followed a little black down onto the sand by the wreck but ran out of breath before I could get him. Lou strapped on a tank and went down and shot him. Since the bubbles from the scuba tanks seem to drive a lot of the fish away I grabbed the camera and took a couple photos.

After that we went back to the reef line. I jumped in on an area that was loaded with little fish. I didn’t see anything big but then Juan and Rafi dropped a bunch of amberjack chunks up current from me and everything started to go nuts. First fish I saw was a 3-4# mangrove which I shot and put on my float line. Then after 10 minutes, a nice black came in on the chunks.  I got down to within range but at the last second the fish started to to take off. I shot him anyway and let go of the gun for fear of him tearing the shaft out.  He ran around a hundred feet and then rocked up. Almost immediately there was a nurse shark trying to go in the hole.  I called for the boat and for Lou to get in with the tank before the nurse ate my fish. The rock wasn’t that deep, around 50 feet , with some work I probably would have gotten the fish out. But with the shark, better to just get the fish. As Lou was getting in, the nurse suddenly changed targets and grabbed the mangrove on my float line and would not let go. For like 5 minutes I had the tug of war with the shark, my gun lodged in a hole attached to a grouper and the nurse attached to my float line rolling around and going nuts. Finally the nurse let go after Lou poked him repeatedly and Lou was able to recover the grouper.

Then we went in to some live bottom to look for some reds and muttons. The water suddenly silted up and the temperature dropped but we did not really find that many fish. It was getting late at this point and we called it a day.  I brought the camera out even though it didn’t spend much time in the water. I am going to try to bring it more.

Getting Cold

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by on December 18, 2010 at 4:28 pm {one comment}

20101211_snappershogs_2834 Haven’t been posting reports on here recently because the days when Catherine have off have not all corresponded to days where she could go out in the boat. I am more into posting photos on here then writing stuff. I have gone out a couple times and did pretty well but nothing outstanding. I am not as into taking pictures of fish out of the water as I used to be. Only if the fish is big does it seem to warrant taking a photo out of the water and nothing I have shot recently has been big, whereas a photo of a barely legal red about to be shot under water is worth taking.

The water has cooled and fish are everywhere.  The couple times I have been out we shot our limit of black grouper, sometimes our limit of reds as well.  All the grouper have been less than 20#, so nothing that special. The water has cooled to the low 70s and all my old  spots are covered with fish. Big rocks that had nothing in the summer, have schools of yellow jacks, yellow tails, and black grouper on them now. It has been very interesting to me paying attention to the fish and bait movements due to temperature changes.   The wind and vis have been the biggest obstacles to getting fish, because it seems like every rock on the reef has fish on it.

I saw the biggest kingfish ever the other day.  I had just jumped in and my gun was not even loaded. The thing looked like a log in the water, like it had reached a certain length and just started growing thicker.  Nurse sharks are clumping up all over reef, perhaps it is mating time for them. Also turtles seem very inquisitive, possibly mating time for them as well.

During the recent cold snap, I switched to diving in the 5mm farmer johns under my 3mm top. So much warmer but such a pain in the ass to dive in. Wearing all that weight takes some getting used to. I don’t really feel comfortable diving past 50 feet because the wetsuit compresses so much that I start sinking like a stone. I also feel like I am spooking fish more.  It seems like I splash more diving even though  I think I am weighted properly. On the plus side I dive right in on that inshore 68 degree water and feel great.  Once the air warms up a bit I am going to switch back to the 3mm pants.

No wahoo but some big blacks

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by on November 19, 2010 at 1:05 am {2 comments}

20101117_west-end-of-bar_2302 Catherine, Brandon, Andy and I went out yesterday. We had big hopes for wahoo and went west looking for them. We hit a spot on the reef and shot some barracuda for chum. From right out of the gate I should have known it would not be my day when I missed two easy shots on barracuda, and notice shaft #1 had a nice bend in it. I switched shafts and shot a nice cero and a small cuda to add to the chum pile.

When we got out to the zone we found chalky water and west bound current, there was also no charter boats, so frankly it did not look good. We gave it a drift anyway and didn’t really see anything until towards the end of the drift we hit the reef. In around 80 feet of water Andy had a big mutton come up to check the flashers. We dropped anchor and started to cut up the chum. Catherine was diving and said she saw a jew fish. I thought about that, we were in 80 feet of water by a drop off , no big structure around that we knew of, I quickly dove to double check on the id of the jewfish. Once I was down around 50 feet I could see a huge black grouper swimming around eating barracuda chunks. I dropped as slow as I could but he was inching out of range, but not out of range of Andy. As he inched away from me he actually was moving toward Andy. Andy hit him with what looked like a great head shot, the grouper went under a small rock and bent the shaft 90 degrees and tore free.  What a loss, we rarely lose fish, and this was a terrible fish to lose but nothing could be done.

After that we chummed some more, Brandon did a drift with a tank and shot large grouper, a small grouper and a huge hog. Then Andy did a drift with a tank and shot another big grouper. I freedove the entire drift, doing 70-75 foot dives but couldn’t really find the fish. I had a lot of fun diving though, I don’t usually dive that deep so I had a good time anyway. After that we went in to the shallows and shot some hogs and caught a couple lobster.

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