July 25, 2021 - Finally, a break in the weather After an incredibly windy May and June with what seemed to be permanent 15-20kt winds, I was finally able to take advantage of a calm day and get out for some dinner.
The question came up as to it's table-fare worthiness, but I explained that this fish had meat much like that of a mangrove snapper, although they typically have to get larger than mangroves to get good size filets. Nonetheless, it was in the cooler. As...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 5-15mph SSE 2-3 SE Swell 40-50' 86F The past couple of weekends were plagued with algea blooms and low viz thanks to the higher surf temps and a West wind that always seems to wreak havoc for us. But right around Wednesday of this...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 5-10 SSE 1-3' 25-55' 85F Many times I get asked the question, "How many fish have you lost to sharks?" and I always find it interesting how people that don't dive or spearfish frequently automatically associate what we do with sharks...
Wind Seas Viz Temp ESE 5mph 1' 40' 85F After almost another week of typical Florida Summer weather with afternoon thunder storms a possibilty on any given day, the wind started to lay down around Wednesday and the forecast really started to shape up...
Wind Seas Viz Temp ESE 5mph 1-2' 40' 81F This past week started out looking very bleak. Storms rolled through the middle keys pretty much all day Monday and Tuesday with torrential downpours and winds in excess of 30mph. It was so bad in fact that...
Wind Seas Viz Temp NW 5-10mph 1-2' 20-25' 75F The winds had been incessant all through April and as May came around there was no end in sight. Throughout the month, everyone was landlocked and cabin fever was setting in with the fishermen I knew (and...
Legend: Mooring Special Zone NO Spearfishing NO Lobstering Sanctuary Archaeological Preserve No Fishing or Spearing D: Depth R: Relief Site ID / Reef Name Material / Description Lat & Lon D R Outbound 136' Trawler 25 13.01, -79 07.73 Ball Buoy Reef 1...
Wind Seas Viz Temp NW 5-10mph 1-2' 20-25' 75F It seems like once you break the ice of making it out the first time, all your subsequent attempts at getting out on the water just seem to come a little easier. So with another good weather forecast on the...
Seas: 2-3' Winds: SSW 10-15 Viz: 25-40' Temp: 82F After yet another weekend with a minimal breakdown on the boat (just remember, BOAT=Break Out Another Thousand), I head down this weekend trying really hard to remember why I do this. After all, the...
it free and surface with all my gear in tact. The day would end with a modest take of schoolmasters, yellowtail and mangrove snappers but it would be enough for dinner so we head home as the light of day just starts to dim. Sunday was more of a scouting...
Seas: 1-3' Winds: 10-15 SSE Viz: 20-35' Temp: 86F (82F Thermocline @ 40') Well, it's been one of those years. The times we have calm seas, we get no viz. The times we have viz, the seas are rough or the fish are nowhere to be found. Saturday morning,...
Seas: Sat - 1-2' Winds: Sat - 5-10 SW Viz: Sat - 15-20' Temp: Sat - 84 F I can't say I wasn't a little worried since the week before I finally get away for some time off after months of dealing with work responsibilities and a host of other...
Seas: 2-3' Winds: 15-20 NE dropping to 10-15 SE in the afternoon Viz: 30-35' Temp: 82F "Third time's a charm", or so I thought... as I headed down for another shot at what would hopefully be my first "full" weekend of the Summer. With the boat in tow...
of that spot or the usual suspects in the area, we left with only a yellow jack, a cero mackerel, a yellowtail and a mangrove snapper to show for it. But we would not be dismayed... (at least not yet anyway). Eastward ho we headed in search of cleaner...
Seas: 2-3 feet Winds: 10-15 S/SE Viz: 50+ feet Temp: 84 F After spending nearly a week in Cat Cay, most people would have been satisfied to get home and vegetate for the rest of the weekend. But truth be told, I've never been lumped in with "most...
Seas: 1-3 feet Winds: 10-15 S/SE Viz: 45 feet Temp: 84 F Don't get me wrong. Regardless of my title for this article, I wouldn't trade the worst weekend in the keys for one sitting at home. And it wasn't the weather or the fishing but the fact that my...
Seas: 1-4 feet Winds: 10-15 S/SE Viz: 25-30 feet Temp: 84 F After last weekend and the good luck we had with finding the large mangroves, we decided early on that this weekend we would focus on doing more of the same as we talked during the week. We...
Seas: 0-2 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...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2011
Results 1 - 20 of 36
Gallery Spotlight
February 5, 2022 - One Day Weather Window
Even though this "one day weather window" actually turned into one the best weekends (including Monday) in the past couple of months, I at least got one dive in on Saturday and landed some fresh dinner.
Even though this "one day weather window" actually turned into one the best weekends (including Monday) in the past couple of months, I at least got one dive in on Saturday and landed some fresh dinner.
Even though this "one day weather window" actually turned into one the best weekends (including Monday) in the past couple of months, I at least got one dive in on Saturday and landed some fresh dinner.
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.
March 4, 2023 - Key Largo African Pompano - Sailfish visitor
A video from a dive last week in Key Largo where my throw flasher proved to be exceptionally effective, so effective in fact that it brought in a special visitor that I never even saw until I was reviewing the video back at home! Stoked to check a fish off my bucket list with a beautiful 25lb African Pompano!
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.
March 4, 2023 - Key Largo African Pompano - Sailfish visitor
A video from a dive last week in Key Largo where my throw flasher proved to be exceptionally effective, so effective in fact that it brought in a special visitor that I never even saw until I was reviewing the video back at home! Stoked to check a fish off my bucket list with a beautiful 25lb African Pompano!
Believe it or not my latest addition to my spearguns is not one for shooting fish (well at least not shooting to kill them). But it hopefully will help others watch online what I love to do underwater. I have made a camera mount for my Riffe Euro guns. This mount will fit on any Euro that has the reel inserts (basically all of them). It was terribly simple to make. The only fairly tricky part was putting together the actual mount screw for the camera tripod mount itself.
{sigplus link=oculusr5 index=1} {/sigplus}Hot on the heels of my review of the GoPro Hero2, I felt I would be remiss if I didn't follow up with a review of the case that resolves the one (and only one in my opinion) flaw in the Hero2 design, it's underwater focus (or lack thereof) flaw. You see, as I wrote about in the Hero2 review the curved lens on the stock case creates a focus fallacy when shooting underwater. It's fairly common knowledge now, so if you want to read about it, you can check...
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...
{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.
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...
UPDATE: An article related to my story below was published in the April 2007 issue of Florida Sportsman. I post it here for the sake of any nay-sayers or persons who may be thinking that some of my descriptions or even the existence of Big Mo may be exaggerated or even fictitious. I invite you to read my story below and then enjoy the article as well. This story is true, and while actually pertaining more closely to my brother-in-law, is one that I was in the water for and probably closer to...
Once again, another year has gone by altogether too quickly. Unfortunately for me, I didn't get an opportunity to dive in December before the grouper closure on January 1. The winds picked up the week before Christmas and didn't let up (actually haven't let up) so December came and went and January showed up without my being able to bag that last grouper of the winter. I guess I'm just going to have to wait until May 1 st to land that next big one! I only hope that I am able to dive a little...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 10 S/SE Viz: 35-50 feet Temp: 86 F All summer long, we've been suffering a grouper recession of sorts. This year was the first year of an experimental close on all shallow water grouper in Florida waters. Unfortunately, along with this closure, we also suffered the longest and coldest winter snaps in the spring that I can ever remember (and I'm born and raised here, so no need for me to check the almanac). This summer has been one of the oddest in recent and long term...
Winds: 5-10 east (morning) 15-20 east (afternoon) Seas: 2-3 (morning) 3-4 (afternoon) Surf Temp: 77F Viz: 35 feet Trying to take advantage of a lull in the spring winds, we headed out at about 8:00am. The day looked like it was going to shape up nicely. The forecast had predicted 5-10 in the morning with 15-20 in the afternoon. The winds had laid down for a couple of days and we decided to see if it had allowed the local waters to clear up some. We headed out of Key Biscayne from the Bay into...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 5-10 SSE 1-3' 25-55' 85F Many times I get asked the question, "How many fish have you lost to sharks?" and I always find it interesting how people that don't dive or spearfish frequently automatically associate what we do with sharks and attacks and how they typically believe that these are some kind of single threat. The truth is that although I have been buzzed by sharks and even surrrounded by sharks, historically, I have lost countless fish to barracuda while losses to...
Winds: 5-15 East Seas: 3-5 feet Surf Temp: 81 F Viz: 5-10 feet Today we headed out to the offshore patch reefs. It was a rough ride, and unfortunately the water didn't clear up for us at all. We dove in depths from 25-32 feet and we were able find some fish to shoot, but it wasn't an easy task. When we finally found them, we had to dive pretty much all the way to the bottom, just to find them. Then you had to take advantage and shoot what you saw or could chase in one breath. There wasn't any...
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