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!
More things for you to see...
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!
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...
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.
{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...
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....
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...
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.
Winds: 5-10 variable Seas: 1-2 feet Surf Temp: +/- 80F Viz: 15-25 feet T his weekend the water was fairly clean in spite of the fact that we had a whole bunch of rain during the week. Too much fresh water usually clouds the viz and makes the water cool (it did do that). We missed high tide by about 1 1/2 hours on Saturday morning, but were able to swim right through to low tide by moving around so the current didn't affect us as much as it could in the wrong spots. We really racked up the...
Winds: 8-10 West Seas: 2-4 feet Surf Temp: 83 F Viz: 10-15 feet Today we went to some of our closer spots, due to the lack of visibility at our offshore patch reefs. Visibility was minimal to nil at most locations deeper than 15 feet. To make matters worse, we missed the tide and were only able to shoot fish for about an hour and a half. The entire days catch amounted to 1 grouper and 1 hogfish. I was glad to finally catch a grouper. It seems like Jewfish (Goliath Grouper) have moved in and...
Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 30-60 feet When I arrived Fri night we started talking about what we were going to do the next morning and figured that this weekend we would pull split duty. One group would head offshore to go for dolphin and the other would hit the patch reefs and go for some of the more local fare just in case the offshore outing wasn't as productive as one might like. So the offshore fishing crew headed out before dawn. I heard them setting up in the wee...
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...
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: 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...