tail... It was a nice mutton. I immediatley pursue the fish and thanks to it's own curiosity and the long reach of my 9' Riffe pole spear, it wasn't long before I was tossing him over the side of the boat. I was feeling pretty good, two fish spotted and...
my partners let me know that had I landed a shot on that behemoth that probably would have been the last I saw of my Riffe pole spear, in essence making it a $400 learning experience. Very soon after Jorge bags the first fish of trip in the way of a...
fish is exactly where I said it was and asked if I was ready to take the shot, my first shot on a Bahamas grouper with my Riffe carbon fiber pole spear. I think it took longer for me to calm down at that point than it did to rest up after chasing the...
my own. I was considering doing this because I had recently had a set of blades replaced as well as purchased a new set of Riffe fiberglass composites and wanted to do something to keep them all from getting marred and scratched when doing the bottom...
ready, my brother in law says there's a nice black margate sitting in one rock. So I make my inaugural dive with my new Riffe/Cameron Kirkconnell pole spear that I gifted myself for my birthday some 5 months ago. This thing is a beast. When I shot the...
head clears the water... "You SOB, you shot her in the gut?!?!?" (I may be paraphrasing). We call for the rock gun (a short Riffe C-1 that can be used in very close quarters) and discuss our strategy to get this fish in the boat. We decide that a solid...
Seas: 3-5' Winds: 15-25 SE Viz: 10-15 Temp: 86F This week I was hoping for something a little extra. At the start of this weekend I hadn't shot a grouper yet all summer and I was hoping I would get the first one in spite of the fact that the weather...
particular gun was a departure for me in more ways than one. I had always (and almost singularly) owned Competitor series Riffe spearguns up to that point (with a No-Ka-Oi thrown in for good measure) and I had never even considered a reel as necessary...
spearfishing community because everyone that helped out did it solely for the love of the sport. After reaching out to Julie Riffe through a friend at Austin's Dive Center here in Miami, she responded with a contact in San Diego that could help me. She...
what he was chasing. All of a sudden he turns to his right and I hear and see his shot. My next sight is that of his 120cm Riffe Euro swimming away without him! I try to give chase, but was just simply out of air and viz and couldn't keep up. As we...
These shafts come standard in 6.75mm with tricut point and Hawaiian floppers in one (1) and two (2) notch varieties. Using a Riffe Euro myself, I expressed my concern over the usual occurance of sliced dyneema wishbones with notched spearshafts as...
so the 4th could get a chance in the water before the fish got scarce (I also knew he was anxious because he had a new Riffe MetalTech he wanted to break in). So I shot my 5 and jumped back in the boat giving him a chance to get his before we moved on....
Spearfishing. In addition to the expo that lets you check out the latest products from manufacturers like Spetton, Omer, Riffe, DiveR and just about any other one you can think of, there are a lot of local resellers and manufacturers of other items that...
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...
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...
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!
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!
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!
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...
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...
Back in March of 2010 I enrolled in and completed the FII Level One freediving course . I was extremely happy with the course content and the outcome (check out the SpearView ). Unfortunately for me, I'm not a professional freediver, so as with many people, life gets in the way and complicated which in turn keeps you from building a true regimen that reinforces all the good behavior learned in the course. Needless to say, I forgot some of the basics, fell back into many of my old bad habits...
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...
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 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.
Seas: 3-4' Winds: 10-20 ESE Viz: 30-40' Temp: 78F It's been a crappy year on many counts. Truth is, before the holidays I thought (or rather, I hoped) that the year of crappy weather, fishing, diving and the breakin/robbery at my house (along with numerous other stupid things going wrong along the way) was the worst of it. Unfortunately I don't think I could have imagined earlier this year how bad things could actually turn, but the unexpected and sudden death of my father in early December...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 S Temp: 82 F (drastic thermal clines) Viz: 25-30 feet Saturday had us up well before dawn as we decided to go out for dolphin first thing with the promise of extremely calm seas and next to no wind for a good part of the day. We were loaded up and on our way out of the marina just as the sun was rising. With 1-2 foot seas as far as the eye could see, we made excellent time heading out into the blue water. We decided to go out in our own boat because the seas were so...
Winds: 20-25 east (Sat)/5-10 east (Sun) Seas: 3-5 feet (Sat) / 3-4 feet (Sun) Surf Temp: 79F Viz: 0 feet (inshore) / 70+ feet (offshore) The weather people (I make it sound like they're aliens or something) almost got it right this weekend too! The weather was originally calling for heavy wind, rain and seas for the entire weekend, but luckily we headed down to the keys anyway. Those that decided to forego this weekend actually passed up on a nice offshore day on Sunday. Saturday afternoon may...
Winds: 10-15 E Seas: 2-3 feet Surf Temp: +/- 82F Viz: 5-10 feet Got a little bit of a late start on Saturday. Thinking high tide was coming early in the morning, we decided to target the afternoon low tide. Unfortunately the charts were off by a couple of hours and in addition to passing up high tide for no good reason, we ended up swimming against an outgoing tide for about an hour and a half before getting a break. The viz was terrible at its best and most of the time you couldn't even see...
Winds: S 5 Seas: 1-2 ft Surf Temp: 86 F Viz: 35-40 ft Saturday was not a good day... I mean, the weather was fine but I just wasn't having a good day. We went back to a spot we had found the week before in about 40-42 feet of water. Last week the viz was absolutely incredible, but unfortunately so was the current. We were fighting what felt to me like a 2-3 knot current. It was an incredible amount of work just to stay put. We spotted about a 10-12 lb mutton but the second I broke the surface...
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...
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