Gulf Wreck |

Water is getting clear again

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on June 16, 2010 at 2:29 am {4 comments}

Went out with Cal and Catherine the other day. We decided to go out to the gulf due to everyone saying how clear it was. First spot we checked was inshore and it was crystal clear for that area. The water was shallow and warm, and not a lot of big fish. We got some triggers, sheepshead, mangroves, a couple hogfish and a small dog snapper. Nothing big but the rocks where alive with bait and fish. Catherine took a lot of photos. After that we went out into the gulf, to a sunken barge. The vis was not as good out there but there was more fish.

First drop down Cal shot a baby cobia without a float line, which he purposely tangled in the anchor line to make sure he didn’t lose his gun. I shot it again before it tore off. Then Cal shot a permit, I would say that permit is quickly replacing amberjack as the number one fish people shoot and then do not want when we get back to the dock. I dove on the barge repeatedly but only saw jewfish and hundreds of Spanish mackerel.

After that my boat wouldn’t start, but then did after some monkeying around with it. Since I really did not want to get sea towed in from far out, I ran home. It was a short day but pretty fun anyway.

Then Yesterday Catherine and I went out for a half day with Jason and his son. We left the dock around 2 and came back around 6. We went in front of Key West and finally the water was clear, after weeks of being dirty. Catherine was wearing Jason’s dive watch and was excited to be able to see how deep she was actually diving.

Jason and his son shot a bunch hogfish, red grouper and yellow jacks. Jason finally shot two fish with his double gun. Jason builds spearguns and built a gun that shoots two shafts and has a double trigger. He seems to think it the greatest thing ever. I think it looks like a royal pain in the ass. With the number of times I have seen him have issues with it, it really doesn’t interest me. I get frustrated enough reloading simple guns sometimes. The gun might work ok with freeshafts on scuba or something, but I really don’t think it’s suitable to freedive with. I know in theory it sounds great but I like to keep things simple.

I shot a big mangrove off the towers on the vandenburg and also got a red grouper on patch coral on the reef. I had 6 foot long reef shark come up and hang out with me on the vandenburg. I really should have taken a photo. Not sure what I was thinking. He came right up on my fins and then went to see if my float was something to eat.

You could probably have shot a similar mangrove on the reef, or even on an inshore patch in 10 feet of water, but would that have been as much fun as diving 50 feet or so and shooting him off the tower of a wreck, in 60-70 foot vis? For me it wouldn’t have been. Some people say that they don’t care the conditions as long as they are shooting a lot of fish, but that doesn’t really scale out for me. Yeah, I like to shoot fish but honestly I would prefer shooting less fish in deeper clear water then shooting a bunch of little fish in shallow dirty water.

Gulf side patches

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on August 3, 2009 at 4:32 pm {no comments}

Catherine, Jason and I went out spear fishing on Sunday. The weather forecast called for 10-15 knot winds. In the morning the Sand Key weather station was reporting 20 knot winds. Right before we left it was down to 17 knots, but that still sucks so we headed to the gulf side. The winds were east to southeast so the gulf side wasn’t that bad. There was 15-20 feet of vis on the gulf side, which is pretty good for that area. We hit a bunch of rocks and coral heads. We also hit a beat up wreck, which didn’t have much desirable fish but was pretty good snorkeling.

One thing I have noticed on the gulf side is the large schools of tiny fish, not as common on the Atlantic or so it seems to me. A small rock on gulf side will be covered with life, filled with lane snapper and maybe a school of glass minnows hovering over it.

We spent the day in shallow water and the fish were small but plentiful. I practiced with my new pole spear. The pole spear’s simplicity seems to make it great for lower vis and shallow water. There is no shooting line to be tangled on rocks, and I am not blasting my shafts through little fish and into rocks behind them. I shot a bunch of hogfish and a couple snapper with the pole spear. I saw one nice black but it was gone into the distance almost instantly. I might have had a shot with my gun , maybe. The only thing I really didn’t like about the pole spear was that it unscrews in sections. I bought it for traveling so that was necessary but I will keep my eye out of a used one piece for use at home. I was hoping to shoot some sort of bigger fish with the pole spear to see how that goes, and if I need a slip tip for it, but there wasn’t much that was big on these gulf side patches . I will take it out to the reef later this week and see if I can pop a big yj with it.