More things for you to see...
SpearViews 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...
SpearViews 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.
SpearViews Over the 4th of July holiday I was able to break in my hawaiian sling made by HawaiianSling.net (Ray Uppstrom). I had purchased this quite some time ago in preparation for a trip to the Bahamas and I finally got to try it out in the waters around Cat Cay, South Bimini. This isn't your normal hawaiian sling. The design is completely unique and interesting in its approach compared to traditional slings. This sling is much more akin to a bow and arrow than it is to a regular sling and it looks...
SpearViews 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.
SpearViews 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...
SpearViews 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...
SpearBlog 2010 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...
SpearBlog 2009 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...
SpearBlog 2007 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...
SpearBlog 2008 Winds: 10-15 E Seas: 2-4 feet (sloppy) Surf Temp: +/- 80F Viz: 15-50 feet (depending on location) We decided to play the tide game today and actually won! The last couple of weeks we were either busting our humps because we got to our spots too early (running into strong tides), or missed the boat altogether and still end up busting our humps in order to catch some fish in spite of missing the slack tide (this of course precludes the fact that we would still run offshore to some of our patch...
SpearBlog 2010 Well, another year has come and gone. Some changes have been implemented for us spearfishermen this year, not the least of which is the closing of all shallow water grouper from Jan 19, 2010 through April 30, 2010. If you want to read more about the reasons behind the closing, check out this article . In future years, the closing is scheduled to begin Jan 1 (instead of 19th like this year). The closing includes pretty much every grouper species with the only exceptions being the Snowy, Warsaw...
SpearBlog 2011 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 ear has pinched up on me for 2 straight weeks making it extremely difficult to dive as long or as deep as I want to, so it's pretty frustrating (and painful). On the up-side though, for the first time that I can remember in my years of...
