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...
made the blunder in our favor.. advantage Team Breathtaking! As we head out deciding which cardinal to take in search of clean water because it's so late, we notice the radio is all a-chatter with tons of johnny-come-lately fisherman (a group we are...
My final dive of 2011 out of Miami and my first time ever seeing a Ribbon Fish (had to look that one up). I got a little tired of seeing this as one of my only 480p videos on the channel so I remastered it in 4K. Original footage is 1080 so there was a little upscaling involved, but I think it was worth it.
My final dive of 2011 out of Miami and my first time ever seeing a Ribbon Fish (had to look that one up). I got a little tired of seeing this as one of my only 480p videos on the channel so I remastered it in 4K. Original footage is 1080 so there was a little upscaling involved, but I think it was worth it.
{sigplus link=goprohero2 index=1} {/sigplus}I finally jumped on the HD bandwagon and bought myself a Hero2 HD digital camera by GoPro. These little beauties have been around for quite a while now so hearing about them isn't exactly news. But since I finally got around to purchasing one for myself and it happens to be that the Hero2 is the biggest leap in performance that they've given these cameras since their launch, I figured I would put in my 2 cents worth.
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 trying and being disappointed by the Omer Zero Cubed mask last year, I picked up a couple of other masks ( Mares Star and Sporasub Mystic ) that fit fairly well and did not disappoint, but were not the perfect fit I've been looking for in a low volume freediving mask so I didn't feel overly compelled to write a spearview about them. In defense of these masks, they are both low volume masks that are relatively inexpensive so for the money they are great purchases. Of these two, the...
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...
It didn't take me long to finish rigging up the 120 with a new reel and 2.2mm dyneema line. Unfortunately as of now (Apr 2009), I haven't had an opportunity to get into the blue water to put this new toy through its paces. I am definitely jones'ing to give it a try! I am also working on making my own flashers for use in blue water. I have been watching these being used on a few spearfishing shows and their reasoning seems sound for their success. They didn't seem too hard to make, so I decided...
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.
Winds: 5-15 South Seas: 3-4 feet Surf Temp: 84 F Viz: 20-35 feet This weekend we finally started to find some cleaner water without having to go too far offshore. For the past few weeks, the real clean water was unfortunately a little deeper than we are accustomed to diving. But over the past week, it seems as though the blue water has moved in a little closer to shore and started to give us a break on viz. We were actually able to spot and follow most of our prey without having to commit to...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 10 feet Today we headed out with the whole family (families) in tow because the seas have been so calm. We headed out around 10a with a plan to be back close to home in time for high slack tide. Our goal was to hit some offshore spots for snapper and hopefully head back closer to home for some hogfish and hopefully grouper. Unfortunately, I am sure we are all familiar with the best laid plans of mice and men and what happens to them. Anyway, we...
Winds: 10-15 SSW Seas: 2-3 feet Surf Temp: +/- 82F Viz: 20-25 feet First weekend back and it was both hard work and fun. It took us a little longer than usual to setup this weekend because we went back to our old campground this year and we are on somewhat smaller sites compared to last year. We did prevail however and got all setup with a little time left for a dive on Saturday. We headed out looking for clean water because we knew that we had missed the tide. Things didn't look too promising...
Unfortunately, I have gotten a late start on the winter diving this year. I had two earlier opportunities to go diving this winter, but both were undermined by work responsibilities. What can I say, it pays the bills. Finally this past weekend (2/15/09), I was able to get out on a decent weather day to do some diving and (I thought) some spearfishing. Unfortunately we didn't have much luck this day (as evidenced by the total lack of pictures for this trip's catch. The day started out great...
Seas: 2-4 feet Winds: 10-15 S/SW Viz: 30 feet Temp: 79 F SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE! Finally a weekend that wasn't under the guise of some kind of work, whether paycheck related or otherwise. Of course it wasn't all honeymoon for me either, at least not at the start. I get a call from a friend Friday afternoon who asks me why we aren't down in the keys shooting fish when we're getting MMS messages from my brother in law with pictures of his 16lb Black Grouper while we're both at work (way to rub...
Seas: 6-8 feet (Sat) 2-4 feet (Sun) Winds: 15-25 S/SE 10-15 E/SE Viz: 40 feet Temp: 84 F This was almost my second week without an update, but a very interesting thing happened this past week. I found out I have a fan (and no, not a facebook fan)! Don't worry, I won't let the celebrity of it all go to my head and anywhere you want to put my Internet Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will do (maybe somewhere between the Dancing Baby and iCarly :). Not wanting to disappoint my now growing...
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