posted by admin on Feb 16

Catherine, Andy, Cally, Fenway and I went out yesterday. Even though the winds have been blowing every which direction we found visibility up 70 feet at at high tide. The calm winds and clear water were quite a relief after being stuck in the house for a week or so. The only downside was it was around 58 degrees in the morning , which is pretty cold weather for going swimming.

We started our day free diving the Vandenburg. In addition to the hundreds of barracuda schooling on it there was a good number of amberjack. I shot one of the Ajs about 50 feet down and had it run right down the to the deck of the wreck. This was kind of a reminder of why I need to get a bigger float.  I am not sure I would have been able to stop an Aj over 40 pounds from running to the bottom with my gun. Luckily this one stopped at the deck which is around 70 feet down and I was able to horse him to the surface. I should have weighed him to see if he beat last week’s 37# aj but I forgot.

Then we moved west, checked another wreck but it was covered with cold milk water, once you got about 50 feet down. Then we checked some rocky areas on the bar but found nothing too exciting. Some triggerfish, mangroves a few cero mackerel. I took one triggerfish for some white meat and moved on. Then we checked some shallow stuff, nothing really except freezing cold water.

Then we went back deep and hit the mother lode of trash fish.  On top of rocks in 50-60 feet of water there was boiling water from huge schools of bar jacks, and under the bar jacks there were hundreds of yellow jacks from 8-15 pounds. I have never seen that many yellow jacks, at least not that size. To top that off under the yellow jacks there were amber jacks from 20-60 pounds.  We shot too many fish. We shot our limit of amberjack, Andy shot one that was 50-60# and it broke his line and took off with a shaft. Every yellow jack we shot would be swarmed by his buddies and the amberjack too, it was pretty ridiculous actually. We had a huge black grouper come out and try to eat one of the yellow jacks, like he was a jewfish.  Fired up nurse sharks were chasing our fish up to the surface in 55 feet of water. I can’t believe with all the blood and commotion more sharks didn’t show up.  I also shot a rainbow runner, I don’t know if it’s a big one or what, but it’s the biggest one I have ever seen.

After that it started to get dark, so we headed in, finally a day on the water after all those windy days. Any want any smoked jack, let me know.

posted by admin on Nov 4

Catherine, Brad, Brian and I went out west to go spearfishing on Monday.  Brad just got a a new boat:  30 foot Whitewater with two 200 horse power engines on it. The speed on the boat is amazing, I feel like my boat is putting around at 25 knots now.  It’s so nice to just cruise at 35 knots when you want to get out there, makes a world of difference.

We drove way west and similar to the trip I took west a couple weeks ago we really didn’t get a lot of fish. After a while of not seeing any grouper in the open I started checking every ledge and hole, and there wasn’t anyone home in any of them. The rocks we were diving had great relief, overhangs, swim throughs, massive bait fish populations but no big fish. We shot a little of everything: black grouper, mutton, mangroves, mackerel, triggerfish but nothing big…except a monster yellow tail Brad shot, which was like 25 or 26 inches long.

Been awhile since I had a really good day on the water, not sure what is up. Normally I just see good and fish and miss them, but lately haven’t been seeing a lot of fish. Seeing a ton of 20 inch black grouper but barely any legals. Only saw one legal that got away this last time I was out, the other legal I saw I bagged.  Not sure if I have to go deeper or shallower, or go gulf side or what.

Vis was variable.  In the morning on the high tide it was a hazy 40 feet but by the end of the day it was less then 20 on the reef out west. On the way in there was maybe 25 or feet of vis on the reef.