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...
rule. You see, we used to struggle with which direction to head in almost every time we would head out to the reef for spearfishing. All our bluewater fishing friends couldn't really understand why there was so much indifference (of course, why would...
and able to hang on to the rest of your gear). This past week we were fortunate to have some of the best diving and spearfishing weather that you could've asked for. Almost 7 straight days of less than 10mph winds from the SE to E and seas so slick you...
optimal to abysmal and we would be fighting wind and seas in our efforts to get back out on and under the water for some spearfishing action this weekend. Luckily for me, it was all in my head and the forecast stayed true as we arrived to nary a flying...
composites and wanted to do something to keep them all from getting marred and scratched when doing the bottom spearfishing that we do so much. If you only or primarily freedive, there's no doubt these skins will still look cool, but I was looking for...
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 12-18mph 2-4' 25-45' 79F This week was a "Boys Weekend" as all the girls and kids decided to stay home and we were hoping to get out for some offshore trolling for dolphin and maybe even get a chance to jump in and shoot a couple....
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...
went back and purchased the Mystic which had been highly recommended by other divers as well as reviews in the spearfishing publication "Ultimate Spearfishing" in their comprehensive review of low volume masks (I don't recall the issue). The difference...
May 2, 2014 - Grouper Opening (the day after anyway). Spearfishing selfies are very hard to do especially in 4 foot seas and 20 knot winds! Still worth it. I got mine!
hands on the boat this week as a friend of my brother in law's was joining us for his first exposure to free diving and spearfishing and my nephew Danny was in town for a week after getting out of Naval Boot Camp before moving on to his next station....
and take the opportunity to kickstart this blog year. I actually hadn't been in the water (for the purposes of diving or spearfishing) since Labor Day (Sept 2013), so I was understandably (at least by me) anxious to jump at an opportunity to get wet. In...
mate (my son) has taken over the helm and doing a very good job of navigating the waves and keeping a good eye on his spearfishing old man. About now, I started to feel bad (both for the catch so far and for my family) about being out in these...
the office, I headed for home around noon. What can I say? The unfortunate circumstance that is work which subsidizes my spearfishing endeavors periodically becomes an obstruction instead of a benefactor of my pastime and unfortunately for me, this was...
more than we can ever say. So during this tough holiday season on Christmas night, I get a text inquiring if I'm up for spearfishing Alligator Reef bright and early the next morning. Of course my immediate response is a resounding "Hell Yeah!" followed...
Seas: 1-3' Winds: 5-15 SSE Viz: 15-20' Temp: 86F So this was supposed to be the weekend I get back to spearfishing after lobster season started last Monday. Since we had gotten bad viz reports from some friends that had spent the last week down in the...
enough is enough and head for home. Honestly, the rest of the week was lackluster as we finally decided to focus on some spearfishing and were continuously faced with either a lack of viz or a lack of fish (or both!). We did shoot some nice mangroves on...
a way you wouldn't have thought possible. I've been having a crappy summer when it comes to my expectations and goals in spearfishing, but I feel like maybe this truly was a corner turned and fun times lie ahead (geez, I hope I'm right).
The Summer up to now has pretty much been a non-event. The wind and seas were keeping the water so dirty that diving and spearfishing was fast becoming an exercise in futility on most days. But I kept hopeful that the weather couldn't stay bad for yet...
Type:
Article
Author:
Bob Diaz
Category:
SpearBlog 2012
Results 21 - 40 of 98
Gallery Spotlight
March 27-28 - Some pics of me and some friends taking the FII (Freedive Instructors International) Level I course.
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!
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...
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.
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...
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....
{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.
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...
Winds: 15-20 S to E Seas: 5-8 feet (sloppy) Surf Temp: +/- 80F Viz: 40-50+ feet (depending on location) This week we were able to enjoy some incredible viz even though the seas were as rough as I can remember. We had strong winds and seas as high as 8 feet for at least 3 days. Incredibly enough the viz did not suffer. The fishing wasn't easy, but we were able to get some picture-worthy fish in spite of the seas. Of course we did have to drive ourselves most of this week as none of the ladies...
Seas: 3-5 feet Winds: 15-20 E Temp: 85 F Viz: 10-15 feet Even though we arose to considerably more wind than the past few days, we decided to head out anyway and see if we could bag our limit of snappers from one of our closer spots (seeing as we knew what the seas would be like). Only the two of us were up to the challenge of driving and diving the higher seas that we knew we would be in for. So we get to our spot with only 10 to shoot due to our lack of friend or family participation in this...
I won't even bother putting up any stats about this weekend's weather because it would only remind me how bad the past 3 weekends have been due to the fact that the Atlantic has just remembered that it's hurricane season and we have had (and will continue to have for at least the next couple of weeks) tropical storms and hurricanes wreaking havoc with the seas and weather. After having one of the best visibility summers I can remember, it has all come to a crashing halt! From what I could see,...
Winds: 5-10 SSE Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 73F Viz: 15-30 feet Finally, we get to start out a new year of diving and spearfishing! We had been waiting for a few days of calm winds for the water to clean up. We had been putting up with 20-25 mph winds and dirty water for almost 2 weeks until last week.
Winds: 5-10 variable Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 73F Viz: 15-25 feet The viz was actually better than we had hoped for, but the water was pretty chilly. The moon was also wreaking havoc with the tides. Fortunately for us, it was the good kind of havoc. We jumped in expecting to have missed slack tide altogether and were able to dive for another 1 1/2 hours. Unfortunately, we had to cut our dive short not due to the tides, but due to a little run in with a couple of the locals I'm always...
This was an abosolutely beautiful weather weekend (If you're into flying kites, wind surfing, sailing or getting seasick). I really shouldn't be so facetious in print. Of course, the name of the site isn't windsurfing.com or crappyweatherlovers.com so I guess anyone who's not paying attention, gets what they deserve.
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