July 6, 2023 - Key Largo Offshore - PB 25# Mahi I wasn't really prepared to do or record this when it happened, but while offshore doing some Mahi fishing off of Key Largo in July '23, we had a bull mahi that would not leave and would not take a bait...
mylar balloons, the conversation turned to things that we've see on crossings. Everyone was mentioning how they had seen dolphins and other types of mammals as well as a number of other interesting sights. With my having the least experience in making...
immediately started talks about how to best take advantage of the time and we decide we will take the bay boat out for some dolphin and then work some spots on the way back home. So we head out early and this morning with a somewhat unique...
"Boys Weekend" as all the girls and kids decided to stay home and we were hoping to get out for some offshore trolling for dolphin and maybe even get a chance to jump in and shoot a couple. So we woke up bright and early Saturday morning to see who else...
seas were supposed to pick up on Sunday so we put in the big boat Saturday night in preparation to try for a run at some dolphin (Mahi, not flipper) the next morning. Unfortunately, the seas were much worse than forecast, as we were in 6-8' seas in only...
couldn't stay bad for yet another week. So we decide to forego the diving Saturday morning and head offshore for some dolphin fishing. We figured if we ran into some decent numbers, we could jump in the water out there and shoot some as well as hook and...
The winds called for were minimal so the plan was to head offshore in the bay boat and see if we could pick up some dolphin. My brother in law and some friends that had stayed the week had some success so we were hopeful we would at least be able to...
for us since we were getting there so late. I still had to chip in and cook my famous (at the campground anyway) blackened dolphin but dinner was great even in spite of the carrier class mosquitoes that kept trying to carry us off into the night (a...
feet Winds: 5-15 S/SW Viz: 45 feet Temp: 83 F This past weekend the forecast was once again looking abysmal. The campground dolphin fishing tournament was even postponed because the outlook was not very good at all. The forecast was calling for 2-4'...
are not without their (frequent) fallacies. What we awoke to Saturday morning (very early because we had decided to go dolphin fishing again) was more akin to Sunday's forecast (and then some). Yes, there were no mosquitoes, but that was mostly because...
all fishermen). We heard from every rod-n-reeler in the park about how they had gone out that morning and everyone had hit dolphin inside 20 miles. As the sun started to dip, our veritable caravan of boats made way back to the campground to make plans...
for interesting sights and would slow down or stop so us tourists could get shots of everything from whales to a pod of dolphins speeding along side of the boat. He had expressed some concern about finding fish since the summer had been less than...
end of the trip we had very little fish to show for our efforts. So little fish that I actually had to defrost some frozen dolphin to make sure there would be enough for everyone that night as at least 5 families were going to be feasting. Luckily for...
A short vid from our Summer 2019 Bahamas Pirate Trip of the quickest landing of a #50 black grouper I've ever had. Proof that it only takes one fish to make the spearinglife spearfishing trip! Thanks to the pirate crew for making every year an adventure!
A short vid from our Summer 2019 Bahamas Pirate Trip of the quickest landing of a #50 black grouper I've ever had. Proof that it only takes one fish to make the spearinglife spearfishing trip! Thanks to the pirate crew for making every year an adventure!
I finally bit the bullet and decided to sell my No-Ka-Oi. It had gotten next to no use in the time I had owned it and it seemed a shame to have it just sit there so I Ebay'd it. With the funds from that sale, I invested in a gun that is a little more multi-purpose (at least that is how I convinced myself to get it :). I was extremely torn among 3 choices. I was considering the Euro 120, 120x and 130. After a couple of weeks of deliberation and a lot of flip-flopping, I decided on the Euro 120....
This review is actually long overdue as I've had this mask for well over a year now and I honestly don't know why I hadn't done it before now. After trying multiple masks over several years (and several hundred dollars), some were good (Mystic, Star, Nano), and some were bad (Zero Cubed). Before this, I had actually decided upon the Cressi Nano as "the one". I thoroughly enjoyed the fit and volume of the Nano, but there were a couple of VERY minor issues with the fit. I'm convinced that the...
The summer had been busier than I would have liked this year and I honestly hadn't had as many opportunities to post much less given much thought to writing a new SpearView, but after having time to really reconsider, I realized that I had actually had multiple opportunities to try out new equipment this year (not all of it successfully). Further to that point, when I took the PFI Freediver course back in March I had decided to invest in a new mask and ended up deciding on the Omer Zero Cubed...
Over the winter I looked into and purchased a couple of sets of Reef Runner Gear's fin skins. I had contemplated having my own manufactured but when I came accross these, it just didn't seem worth the hassle. You can create your own custom design for a few bucks more and although you can run into some small snags when doing so (I'll elaborate later on), Jon from Reef Runner Gear is an awesome guy to work with and he will do everything he can to make things right.
Over the weekend of March 27 th & 28 th I took the Level 1 Freediving course offered by FII (Freediving Instructors International) at their Headquarters in Pompano Beach FL. FII was started by Martin Stepanek, a multiple time freediving world record holder. The Level 1 curriculum is taught over a 2 day course. The first day is classroom and pool based and spans almost 9 hours. This course is designed for beginning freedivers and is supposed to get novice divers to a depth of 66 feet.
This past weekend, I finally got to go to The Blue Wild dive expo. After 3 years of everybody telling me about it and not being around to get to go to it, the stars finally aligned and I was able to check it out. Unfortunately, it meant missing out on 5-10mph winds and less than 1' seas inside the reef, but there were other reasons I couldn't get out this weekend, so I figured I would take advantage to check it out and possibly win something from the raffle to boot (I won't keep you in...
So for the third year in a row, we begin to plan our annual guys spearfishing trip to the Bahamas in April via What's App. The group is put together and the messages start to fly with talk about the great trip we had last year and how everyone can't wait for this one. There's talk about new gear and new training tools and regimes, but the one thing that we knew wasn't going to be different was the destination. It was an immediate and unanimous decision to re-visit Grand Cay near Walker's Cay...
Even though I have had a few chances to take the boat out this winter, my spearfishing frustrations continue. The past couple of weekends have given me a chance to take the family out for wonderful days out on the boat, but being the only spearfisherman on the boat presents constant challenges. I did dive this past weekend, but there wasn't much to be seen and when I started to scout for some new locations (since I never dive in Miami and fishermen hoard their spots like women hoard pairs of...
Winds: 5-10 variable Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 73F Viz: 15-25 feet The viz was actually better than we had hoped for, but the water was pretty chilly. The moon was also wreaking havoc with the tides. Fortunately for us, it was the good kind of havoc. We jumped in expecting to have missed slack tide altogether and were able to dive for another 1 1/2 hours. Unfortunately, we had to cut our dive short not due to the tides, but due to a little run in with a couple of the locals I'm always...
Winds: SE 5-10 Seas: 1-2 ft Surf Temp: 81 F Viz: 20-30 ft This weekend we found a strange phenomenon in the water (at least it was weird for us). As we rode out to some of our spots, the water appeared to be practically crystalline. But when we jumped in the water we found a rather odd themalcline. When diving in about 30 feet, we found the bottom 5-6 feet to not only be warmer, but extremely dirty. The other odd thing about this phenomenon was that the water was extremely warm by comparison....
I am still pretty much out of commission. My hearing has returned (most of it anyway), and most of the ringing is gone. I did get to go out this weekend. Unfortunately, I was only driving. But the conditions were as follows: The winds were gusting up to 35 MPH, and storms kept moving up from Key West through the lower and middle keys. It didn't make for a nice weekend for the land lubbers, but you could see bottom from the boat in water as deep as 25-26 feet. Considering the storms, the water...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 E Viz: 40-50 feet Temp: 80 F Well, the weather finally held up until I got down there and what weather it was this weekend! Saturday and Sunday had 5-10mph winds out of the West and a mild 1-2' seas as far as the eye could see. We only hoped that the change in the wind from the East last week to the West this week wouldn't wreak too much havoc with the fishing. We had heard that those that were dolphin fishing earlier in the week were having no luck in close and only...