Hogfish |

No wahoo but some big blacks

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

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.

Conch Garden and the Drop off

Filed under Spearfishing Gear, Spearfishing Photos by admin on November 14, 2010 at 12:21 pm {no comments}

Some decent weather and decent fish this week. Went out Wednesday with Catherine and Andy, and visibility was pretty good. We dove a lot of shallower stuff due to the ripping current. Mutton snappers are here again, we shot 4 or 5 of them. Andy had the biggest one which was probably around 8 pounds. I shot a couple reds and also a few hogfish. Couldn’t really find the black groupers. I was starting to feel like I was getting good there for a bit getting a black every trip for a while, but now it’s been a few times out and I haven’t gotten any. We did some drifts in a grass area I call the conch gardens- there are conchs every where. There are also lots of hogfish and the occasional mutton snapper. I cut up up a small cero mackerel and we watched a jewfish and nurse shark argue over who gets it. We finished up on the bar where Andy shot a big mangrove maybe 5 pounds and both grabbed a trigger fish.

The next day Lou, Catherine and I went out and we did great. Well Lou did great. Pretty much for every fish I shot he shot one of the same species twice as big. We did some shallow stuff for a bit. There were groupers in shallow water but they were very spooky. We also ran into a nice school of yellow jacks. We both popped a nice one but staying with the theme of the day Lou’s fish was bigger. Catherine followed us on some drifts, I shot a small grouper, small mutton, decent hog. Then Lou did a drift and shot a fat grouper and big mutton. We finished the day by going out to the deeper water and we found some stuff. I could not believe how awesome the stuff I found on the drop off was, less then a half mile from spots I have dove a dozens times. A ledge starting at 70 feet quickly coming up to 50 feet with swiss cheese bottom and tons of fish. I was off my game a bit and blew shots on two nice groupers in a short period of time. Lou and I both shot dog snappers, he got another nice mutton and I shot a big yellow jack all in the space of 30 minutes, it was great. After that with the winds picking up and the day getting late we headed in.

Clear Blue Water

Filed under Spearfishing Photos, Spearfishing Reports by admin on November 2, 2010 at 7:19 pm {no comments}

Finally after weeks of wind and terrible visibility, we got a calm day with clear blue water. Nate and crew were out and reported the blue water was pushed in to the west. So as soon as possible we loaded up and headed west. Also for once the calm day fell on one of Catherine’s days off, so I pretty much couldn’t ask for better luck.

We loaded up and headed out in Eddie’s boat in the morning. It was Eddie, Catherine, Andy, Dan, Andrew and myself. The plan was to go far west to the tail end. On the way out when we were running past Cosgrove shoal the water looked so clear it almost looked like we were running across air. There had to be over 100 foot of vis on the reef. When we got further west, it came down to maybe 70-80 feet of vis but it was still awesome.

We did very well on fish but no really big fish. The sheer volume of spearable fish was pretty amazing though. There were 2-4# hogfish and grey snappers everywhere. Yellow jacks and amberjacks all over. Groupers were not as thick as we had hoped but we got some anyway. No large groupers though, biggest black was around 15# and largest red grouper was probably around 8#. I saw one grouper around 25# yesterday but saw no really big groupers.

We had a great time and Catherine took a bunch of photos. No sharks or any other big animals spotted out there.