April 19, 2024 - Shooting and landing a pair of African Pompanos (in 10 minutes or less) - Spearfishing Key Largo This Spring day in April started out slow but ended up being one of my best days when I happened across this pair of African Pompanos in...
a bull mahi that would not leave and would not take a bait no matter what we did. Since we never leave home without our spearfishing gear, I suited up and what happened next was.... well, that's why you watch the video.
Key Largo Cubera - PB 17# Making up for some lost time with a video of the day I shot my personal best 17lb Cubera Snapper in Key Largo back in September 2020.
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!
Another long overdue edit, but what can I say? Life continues to get in the way of my hobbies... Check out the blog. {igallery id=6727|cid=22|pid=11|type=category|children=0|addlinks=1|tags=2017, bahamas, pirate trips, grand cay|limit=1}
Finally got around to editing the footage from our first trip to Grand Cay back in 2016. It really sucks when what you have to do gets in the way of what you truly want to do. Who knows, this might lead to my getting around to editing all of last...
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...
One of the few usable clips from our outing for the opening of the Atlantic Grouper season 2017. Definitely demonstrates why you should always be checking your surroundings. Enjoy! Check out the blog. {igallery...
A quick video from the end of a spearfishing afternoon when we visited the Neptune Memorial Reef off Key Biscayne, FL. Not the greatest viz, but still a pretty cool sight. You can get more info here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune_Memorial_Reef...
to take an overdue day off from work. Been waiting for this since October! Not really expecting much in the way of spearfishing, but sooo much better than being at work! Check out the blog
to take an overdue day off from work. Been waiting for this since October! Not really expecting much in the way of spearfishing, but sooo much better than being at work! Check out the blog
to take an overdue day off from work. Been waiting for this since October! Not really expecting much in the way of spearfishing, but sooo much better than being at work! Check out the blog
since we got to the island, no matter how much I may argue to the contrary. Don't get me wrong, I do love diving and spearfishing but no matter what my wife may tell you, I am capable of having a good time without doing my favorite hobby (I'm just...
I guess it all started about 4 weeks before when I get the call from my most adventurous spearfishing bud Carlos, asking if I was up for a 5 diver, 4 day trip to Andros in the Bahamas. Being the expert that I am on the Bahamian islands, I immediately...
Wind Seas Viz Temp 10-25 ENE/Variable 3-4' 5-15' 78F In South Florida, probably one of the most anticipated and planned spearfishing outings (aside from those that take you to major global destinations) is the trip we make on or about May 1 of each...
For the past 20+ years my family and I have been heading down to Marathon during the Summer months for the purposes of spearfishing and family weekends. Over the past 15+ years since owning my web site, these Summers have offered me the opportunity to...
grabbed hold of me from that moment. I've never had the opportunity to head over to Bimini with the sole intention of spearfishing for the day with no other distractions. A vacation in Cat Cay a few years ago afforded me my first trip to the Bimini...
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....
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....
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...
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...
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.
{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...
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...
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: 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 for 2-4' seas inside the reef and 3-5' seas beyond the reef with 15-20 knot winds out of the S/SE (which usually means the seas will build even higher than the forecast) on Saturday with slightly calmer wind and seas on Sunday. The drive in on...
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, with the entire family on board, we decided to head out West without hesitation hoping we could find more of some of the snappers we had found a few weeks ago (even though that wasn't even all that much). We had hit a few spots back then that had...
Seas: 2-4 feet Winds: 5-15 ESE Temp: 80 F Viz: 25-30 feet After missing out last weekend, this weekend had me pulling an all nighter at work on Friday, so I didn't pull into the keys until almost 10a Saturday morning on no sleep for 27 hours (but I wasn't going to miss out on another weekend). Luckily, I am pretty accustomed to the drive, so I probably only dozed off 2 or 3 times... tops :). About 5 minutes out of the campground, I got a call asking if I wanted my gear put on the boat in case...
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...