posted by admin on Aug 23

I was fortunate enough this week to go on an overnight trip to the Dry Tortugas. What a blast! I went on Robert Trosset’s 34′ Yellowfin, along with Nate, Cory, Robert, Brad and Rob. Catherine couldn’t make it so it was me on the camera. Taking photos is more work then it looks like but I caught a few cool shots with the new camera. We dove a lot of places, big wrecks in the Gulf, Air Force relay towers, Tortugas Bank, Rebecca channel. We also dove some awesome stuff inside the Tortugas Sanctuary (without guns, of course) places like Sherwood Forrest and the windjammer wreck.

Fishing was good but the big black groupers were elusive. I shot the biggest hogfish and biggest mutton snapper I have ever shot. We got a variety of fish, and numerous lobsters. I freedove everywhere, along with Corey and Nate. Robert and Rob tank dove. The vis was tremendous pretty much the entire trip, 50+, sometimes closer to 80. I could dive down 20 feet and see bottom at the Relay towers, it was pretty amazing. The only thing that was a draw back was the lack of fish on the towers. Other then the permit and a few dinky AJs there wasn’t much on the towers that where freedivable. The tank divers were able to pull fish off the base of the towers but that was 100+ feet down. The same was kind of true on the big wreck we dove. I saw one big grouper, but he quickly scooted down to over 100 feet of water out of my range.

There were literally 100 jewfish on the big Gulf wreck.  Diving down you could count 20 in just one little section. I am not one of the “I have to be able to shoot everything I see to be happy” type of people, but there seems to be too many jewfish. 100 jewfish and one black grouper, sort looks like something’s out of balance.

We also dove something called Kingfish rock pile, which is located somewhere north of the Fort.  It was 100′ deep so it was a little deep for freediving.  Brad had equalization issues and everyone was pretty tired from the ride out so while Robert and Rob slept, myself and Brad set up a chum slick and hooked and lined yellowtals.  Corey would jump in and shoot the occasional mangrove snapper that swum up in the chum slick.  Robert’s brother had seen a large tiger shark in that area several times recently but it did not show up.  When Robert and Rob awoke they dropped down on scuba tanks and shot a large red and a close to 7 pound mangrove snapper.

Sleeping on the beach at the Tortugas was pretty great except that the wind went to 0 and it felt like trying to go to sleep in a sauna for awhile. It was so hot, sweat was just dripping off me even when I was holding still in the dark. The park rangers and FWC checked everything in our boat. So if you plan on going there, plan on having everything checked. We had a young and kind of zealous officer check our stuff, while two older officers looked on kind of indifferently. The younger guy couldn’t id half of our fish.

The wildlife on the island is interesting, rats and hermit crabs scurry around in the night. The birds also get up at first light and start making a lot of noise.

The windjammer wreck in the sanctuary is a blast to snorkel. There are huge mutton and dog snapper living on it that are practically tame. All the fish species seem much more approachable and in fact many swim right up to you. There are huge mangroves living inside the wreck, along with monster jewfish and large black grouper. The Sherwood forest was also amazing but at 70 feet was more difficult to free dive. I had a monster mangrove swim right up to the front of my camera on one dive.

The reef sharks that live around the Tortugas bank are also pretty fun. We lost a couple fish to them at first until we teamed up to fend them off. It’s pretty amazing how if you shoot a fish and let it struggle too long you will suddenly have 2-4 sharks all over you.  They move extremely fast, but seem to be very targeted on the fish, and will try to avoid getting too close to a person. When one of the sharks ate a grouper it actually drew in a large black fin tuna, but no one could get a shot on it.

Diving in Rebecca channel was also very interesting.  It was the only place we dove where the vis wasn’t good and the current  was ripping.  It made for extremely difficult freediving, but on tanks you could shoot a lot of fish. Brad, Cory and Robert did a few tank dives and each and every drop produced some decent fish.

posted by admin on Apr 12

Finally we got some good weather after a almost two weeks of 20 knot winds. On Friday Cat, Jason, Andy, one of Jason’s friends and I went out. We knew the vis was really bad in front of Key West so we headed out to the Gulf side to check it out. The vis sucked out there as well. We checked the patches at the end of Calda Channel and the Jetties in the northwest channel but it was pretty dirty. Then Fenway injured himself in the boat and we had to take him and Andy in to the vet. Fenway recovered quickly and was back to attacking other dogs and chasing pelicans by that afternoon, even with a slight limp.

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.

posted by admin on Jan 24

There are black grouper everywhere and the season is closed. I saw more black grouper in the past couple days then I think I have ever seen, and bigger too. And on top of that I still have not put a wahoo in the boat.

Went out two days ago with Brandon, Andy, Gabe, and JB . We went and looked at some gulf wrecks. The wrecks were covered with cobia but the vis was about 5 feet. Brandon and I tried spearing it but the terrible vis along with the monstrous bull shark that swam up to us in the murk was too much: we didn’t swim it for too long. After they caught their limit on the cobia on hook and line we headed out to the reef. There was over 100 feet of visibility on the reef. We saw wahoo and yet again did not get any in the boat. It’s starting to get kind of Captain Ahab-ish with wahoo. The vis was beautiful and although many of the areas we were drifting were kind of deep I had fun doing practicing diving to keep warm. I shot a nice dog snapper in around 60 feet of water and then we came in.

The wahoo thing is getting a bit frustrating.  The only thing I have learned new this past time was that I should swap the 250# mono I use for hunting the reef with 300-400# mono for rigging the gun.

The next day I went out again,  this time with Catherine, Jason, Nate, Corey and Paul. We headed out to the wahoo zone again, and again were skunked on the wahoo. Supposedly they were deeper that day. The vis was still awesome and I did a lot of 70 foot dives(as deep as my float line would allow), I am going to have to get a longer float line for going diving with Corey and Paul. Once we were discouraged with the wahoo we hit the reef in around 50 feet of water. We hit one ledge that had a school of yellowtail on it, some of the biggest yellowtail I have ever seen. There had be to some pushing 8-9 pounds, they were the size of yellowjacks and would not let anyone get near them. Under the yellowtail we counted around 6 legal grouper, one of which was over 30#, and two were over 20#. The big one knew to take off when he saw us, but I almost got close enough to poke a 20# one with my spear tip. It’s like they know the season is closed. We shot mangrove and mutton snapper, yellowjacks, triggerfish and cero mackerel, and had to pass on grouper after grouper.  We then came in shallower but the vis kind of sucked.

I have been diving much better the last few months, for a while I was getting kind of frustrated with my diving.  My body could dive way deeper then I could equalize. After doing a few dives around 70 feet my ears would start squeaking and then over the course of the day I would have to dive shallower and shallower often having to quit early because of inability to keep equalizing.  Then I started taking nasal spray and this fixed problem instantly. I could dive whatever depth all day long. I noticed that even when I could equalize before the effort involved was cutting a lot out of my dive time, but now I was diving deeper and a lot longer.

The nasal spray is nasty stuff though and as much as I think you can get away with it once a week or whatever I tried to look for an alternative. My issues were not with mucus in my passages apparently, sudafed, mucinex, not drinking milk(I kind of think that’s an old wives tale anyway) did not seem to help at all. My problem seems to be with inflammation and swelling, which is why the nasal spray helped so much. So the last couple dives I have been taking gel coated aleve the night before and in the morning.  It’s an anti-inflammatory, and I have been able to dive all day with no nasal spray.  I guess I should not take anything next time to test if it’s the aleve that is helping but since it doesn’t have the negative side effects of the nasal spray, there really isn’t a reason to not take one.

posted by admin on Nov 26

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.