Mackerel Everywhere

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by on February 4, 2010 at 6:20 pm {2 comments}

amberjack-spearfishing 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.

Went out  yesterday and the day before, on Tuesday Luis and I went out. Originally Luis had a doctor 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 240-50 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 where 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 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 he was happy how it performed well , and tested it out on the king fish.
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.

Pretty much a bust

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by on October 16, 2009 at 1:43 pm {no comments}

Went out spearfishing yesterday with Brad, Luis, Brian and Catherine. Luis had been out a couple days ago and  said the vis was better to the west so we ran west. The water on the reef was crappy, less then 20 feet of vis.   So headed out to the outer edge and found some clear water. We had clear water for about an hour. We drifted over some nice fishy rocks, marked a couple of nice ledges and saw nothing to shoot. There were a couple yellowtail boats in the area, maybe their chum slicks had drawn everything behind them?  I don’t know but we drifted rocks and ledges that had a ton of small fish on them, but nothing bigger. Then the water silted up so we started driving.

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We did a couple drifts over a deep water wreck, but didn’t see anything.  I was about to drop the flashers down when noticed that the swivel on them was messed up, so I fixed it. Then I dropped the flashers in without reconnecting them to the mainline and they sailed off into the abyss. That’s like the third set of flashers lost this year.

So then we ran west, hoping if we got past the Boca Grande channel the water would clear. It didn’t, and after driving around forever, we dropped anchor on a small shallow rock pile. Brian and I shot some triggerfish and yellow jacks, Cat took some photos. The rocks had basically unlimited mangroves on them, with a big school of yellow jacks orbiting the rocks. I saw what might have been a black grouper or a large black margate disappear into a hole but that was it really.

lou-brian-brad-bad-vis-017

Then we pulled anchor and drove back toward Key West. We made a couple stops along the way but the vis was still crap. For a minute there was some clear water on the bar on the way home, but it quickly silted up and a strong west bound current came with the bad vis.

Before we came home we went out to check the noaa buoy in 300 feet of water, but apparently they removed it, so we ran out there for nothing. All in the all the day was a big bust.