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 Jun 4
Yesterday, Catherine Brian, Mike and I went out did a little tour of the wrecks in front of Key West, free diving all of them. First stop was the Cayman Salvage, it is on 82-85 feet of water. The scuba divers on it where just leaving so we dove it with guns, there wasn’t a lot on it that we could see. The surface vis was good and we could see the wreck from the surface, also could see the large jewfish sitting next to it in the sand. The deck was around 70 feet down and we could see lots of small fish, there where permit but we were inside the 3 mile line so we didn’t spear any. We tried to get down to look under the wreck but due to depth and lack of vis on the bottom we gave up.
The next wreck we dove was the Vandenburg. It was just sunk last week so no fish really on it yet. Plus it is covered with head boats. There was no need to bring the guns. I honestly had a ton of fun snorkeling the wreck. Due to it being more offshore the vis was fantastic and the top structures are in 50-60 feet down and totally reachable freedivng. We were luck enough to not have any current and we spent a fairly long time just taking pictures.
The next stop was joe’s tug. The wreck was deserted so we brought our guns, there was tons of bait and yellow jacks. No one saw any good bottom fish, but close by there was good bottom and decent spearing. We hit some other spots along the reef line Brian picked up a king mackerel and black grouper. Mike shot a cero mackerel , hog fish and mahogany snapper. We had some turned on reef sharks come and try to steal fish. They were much more aggressive then most sharks we see, unfortunately I only got one on film and then my batteries died. I totally forgot I had a spare in boat, and after I remember the shark escapades where over.
We hit some shallow stuff on the reef and Catherine took pictures of the tarpon and corals. I shot zero fish, still have a lot of grouper and Aj left from last week.
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.
