30 minutes and while we did see a couple of fish worthy of landing, they were terribly skittish. "Maybe the water's too clean..." we thought, because these fish were taking off almost as soon as we could discern their outline in the distance. We...
tree that were blown into the boat that night. You may not be like me, but if you are the work that goes into keeping a boat clean is considerable and jumping on my boat to find this was upsetting, so I proceeded to spend the next hour trying to...
way out on Saturday. Maybe I should be more negative more often... Saturday finds us heading East in search of mangroves and clean water. We get to one of our spots and at first the water looks deceptively clean from the boat as we peer into it. We see...
for the remainder of the day. After spending much of the morning watching everyone else give up and either take out and clean their boats or depart completely, I finally get the whole family up and going and start heading out around 12:30. With the tide...
of some advice given us by our offshore fishing friends that had actually gone out earlier. We were told that we could find clean water out at the reef with reports of 30+ feet of viz from the boat as they passed the reef on the way out and back from...
(a decision whose forward-thinking we would all have a much greater appreciation later in the day). We head out in search of clean water and no other particular destination in mind. As we head out we decide to check out Hawk Channel which follows the...
hadn't toggled through-and-through. It was starting to get near dusk so we headed home because we had a crapload of fish to clean and we hadn't even planned dinner yet. While cleaning fish well into the evening, I got a call from work that turns out to...
much dirtier than the low tide (actually a lot dirtier). We haven't been able to figure out why the low tide has been so clean lately since the outgoing tide from the Gulf usually brings out all the murky brackish water of the back country and the...
a little later. Starting Saturday, things actually didn't look that bad as we headed out in the afternoon and found somewhat clean water out to the East. We were actually able to dive water as deep as 50+ feet. We were able to dive some spots I hadn't...
quick count told me there were at least 5 or 6 of these invasive nuisances on this spot so I decided to take the time out to clean house to see if some of our more regular residents would come back home after evicting these unwelcomed guests. So down I...
as is the case anywhere you go and anytime of the year, but this year the wind hasn't let up long enough to allow the viz to clean up substantially at all. The problem we face is that even if the water happens to clean up, we have to endure 4-6' seas in...
of doom, but being my usual determined (stubborn) self, I kept on keeping on regardless. After getting the truck unstuck and cleaning it off, we decided to get underway. The seas looked horrible, but we figured we would make at least one attempt to get...
really hasn't been my summer where grouper are concerned. In the afternoon, we headed out to the patch reefs in search of clean water. We first head out just West of the lighthouse to see if we can better our chances of finding this that has eluded us...
range which made for some building seas. Some old friends showed up for the day so we loaded up and headed out to look for clean water and see if we couldn't feed them some keys fresh fish later that day. We headed out full of vim and vigor and hopeful...
way back then. But things only seemed to get more complicated and weekend after weekend went by with nary a fish on the cleaning table. By that time I'm thinking "No problem", I'll surely get to go shooting once grouper opens on the first of May (Double...
and went and almost everybody packed up and went home on Sunday, much to our delight. We were hopeful that the water would clean up and the winds would lay down so we could make up for lost time while everybody else was gone this week. We were able to...
is now only 1 Black/Gag per person (and we weren't targeting Red Grouper in this depth) and a few Snapper but the water was clean and we figured this was our last stop on this whirlwind tour before heading home so we were really just hoping to fill the...
of the water beyond the South end of Cat Cay. The water I dove here was anywhere from 10 to 30 feet deep and a little less clean due to the constant wave action against the nearby rocks. There I saw a legal Black Grouper as well as a Mutton snapper that...
the side of the boat that are bigger than those they were catching on hook-n-line :). So we keep heading West chasing fish, clean water and open spaces with limited success. We hit a couple of spots with big numbers of snappers, but not very many were...
the winds 10-20 from SSE. The water clarity seemed pretty good as we came out of Hawk's Channel, what we typically call a "Clean Green". Even in 25-30' we could see the bottom but we couldn't see the thermocline that was lying in the bottom 4-5' of...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2011
Results 21 - 40 of 109
Gallery Spotlight
August 23-24, 2014 - Depressing pickup weekend, but at least there were grouper...
The Summer of 2025 had been especially slow from a spearfishing perspective for me. I will typically be gifted with at least one mentionable fish from my spearfishing ventures each Summer in Key Largo. This year, I was really starting to give up hope on my perennial "mentionable" fish. Luckily for me, perseverance can pay off and on a lazy Sunday morning when I almost decided to stay on the dock, I got my gift! On my first spot of the day and only the second drop of the day, I was able to land my personal best (in Key Largo) Mutton Snapper, weighing in at almost 14.5 pounds!
The Summer of 2025 had been especially slow from a spearfishing perspective for me. I will typically be gifted with at least one mentionable fish from my spearfishing ventures each Summer in Key Largo. This year, I was really starting to give up hope on my perennial "mentionable" fish. Luckily for me, perseverance can pay off and on a lazy Sunday morning when I almost decided to stay on the dock, I got my gift! On my first spot of the day and only the second drop of the day, I was able to land my personal best (in Key Largo) Mutton Snapper, weighing in at almost 14.5 pounds!
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...
This year at The Blue Wild I was fortunate enough to meet Mike Hickey. I know of Mike from his appearances on Speargun Hunter on the Outdoor Channel with Sheri Daye. Mike was orginally a guest on the show and in later seasons participated as an underwater videographer. Mike is the USA distributor for FreeDivers ( FreeDivers USA ) spearfishing equipment. I came across his booth and after a great conversation about spearfishing, we started discussing the rising cost of spearshafts specifically....
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....
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.
I realized recently that I had overlooked the fact that I had purchased and used some new SpearGear at the beginning of the Summer of 2011 and hadn't gotten around to posting about it (here or in SpearGear). This article is going to be one that definitely crosses over between SpearViews and SpearGear because of the fact that I do own it but I definitely think it's worthy of a review as well. In the end, SpearViews won the coin toss deciding where I would put the article (especially after I...
Throughout my relatively short history in spearfishing (as of this writing), I have only used a few different spearguns. Now obviously, my opinion in this matter is not one of extreme trial and error. Mostly it consists of recommendations made to me by those I spearfish with along with some of my own common sense. In the beginning (early 1990's), I used one of my brother-in-law's extra guns. Specifically, a 38" Arbalette. Now this gun had already seen finer days by the time I started using it....
After a few years' absence, we were able to make it back to Cat Cay for a family vacation this Summer. Just like our last trip , we spend the week leading up to the departure stocking up with supplies to minimize our on-island purchases (even though there are sundries on the island, they can be a little pricey), weather-watching and double checking everything possible on the boats before that (hopefully) early morning crossing. The weather wasn't shaping up perfectly, but definitely better...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 S Temp: 88 F Viz: 10-15 feet My advance apologies for the brevity of this week's blog. Just not in a very literary mood this week, I guess. Luckily, it was a short weekend due to the fact that Father's Day was Sunday and I tried to head back home early to spend it with mine. Unfortunately, some people who are apparently guaranteed employment at the public works in Monroe County decided it would be a good idea to close down northbound US1 on the 18 mile stretch from...
Seas: 5-8 feet Winds: 20-25 ESE Temp: 78 F Viz: 5 feet We pulled in late Friday night after a brief (who am I kidding?) legal discussion of highway driving with a friendly Monroe County Sheriff's Deputy. According to friends that arrived before us, the winds picked up around 9p. There weren't too many storms, but the winds didn't let up all night. Up before the crack of dawn Saturday morning, we found the conditions had actually deteriorated even more from the night before. High tide was too...
Wind Seas Viz Temp E-SE 18-24mph 4-6' 5-15' 79F The excitement for grouper opening started a few weeks ago when my brother in law and I started discussing our plans. There was talk of scouting on Sunday and taking Monday through Wednesday off to maximize our time on the water. We would connect with our friends Lazaro and Chris and we were hopeful that we would have a good opening like last year. As usual, we talked timing, accommodations and weather forecasts. After talking about it for about...
Unfortunately, right after starting this conditions journal, I have experienced a small setback. I am suffering from an inner ear problem which currently prohibits me from spearfishing. I will probably be out of commission for a couple of weeks (at least). But I guess it's worth it. I'm pretty stone cold deaf in my right ear, and the ringing is enfuriating. Hopefully I will be back in the water soon.
Seas: 1-3' Winds: 10-15 ESE Viz: 45'+ Temp: 82F In spite of the lack of a blog for last week, it was actually a good hunting weekend as we found big mangroves on the patch reefs for the first time this Summer. In fact, I shot what was probably one of my biggest mangroves yet, weighing in that 6-7lb class. I didn't think it merited a blog though, since I got it on a make up shot because my brother in law had missed it and we wanted to make sure it didn't hightail it out of the staghorn before...
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