Seas: 1 feet

Winds: 5-10 E/SE

Viz: 50-60 feet

Temp: 80 F

The weather had been holding up all week and the forecast from NOAA indicated the weekend would be more of the same, so I had been anxiously waiting all week for Friday to come along. After a long week of meetings at work (which sometimes felt like they would never end), there were times I couldn't wait for the weekend but Friday was finally here and I was ready for a good day.  As far as work days go, Friday was as good as one could shoot for (especially after a crappy week) and a great way to kick off the weekend.

 

We had a friend coming down from Miami to dive with us on Saturday. We were up early to find Angel waiting for us and ready to go. We got ready as quickly as we could and loaded up the boat and headed offshore to dive some spots and try to make it back for slack tide around noon. Heading out around 8a, it was another beautiful morning with 5 mph winds out of the East and dead calm seas. For the third weekend in a row, the water cleaned up beautifully as we passed Hawk's Channel and the blue water was in clear view.

First stop, the spot I landed that big mutton a couple of weeks ago to see if the switch in the wind back to the East was successful in driving some fish back into shallower water. We jumped in and were able to land a few respectable mangoes but it did take a while. After a while I swam over to the edge of the reef where it drops off into the sand. As I'm cruising along trying to keep my mind off how much longer I can hold my breath, I come along a pair of nice sized muttons swimming along together. First thing I do is glance up to see if there is anyone else in the area that can track the second mutton once I shoot the first (pretty presumptive of me, right?) I look up but unfortunately no one is close enough to be able to see what I am seeing and I can't chance surfacing or lose the fish. It's amazing how during all this I haven't felt an urge to breathe, even as I'm trying to keep an eye on both fish all the while hoping that they'll cross paths just once and give me a two-fer shot. Unfortunately, after a short while even my distraction isn't enough to fight off the urge to breathe, so I pick a likely victim and pursue him just a bit longer so I can get a shot off. I'm able to get a shot in him and as expected the second mutton disappears into the distance (oh well, at least I got mine!).

We head to another couple of spots with not too much to show for it, but we're still having a good time. At one point, seeing as how I wasn't seeing a whole lot of fish, I decided to do nothing but concentrate on my breathing and relaxing techniques just to see what I could do with respect to my bottom time. It's hard to describe and account for the impact that seeing that fish you've been hoping for has on your dive time. I tried my hand at the Aspetto (waiting) style of spearfishing too. Without all the stimulus of seeing fish I wanted to chase (much less shoot) I was able to consistently get my dive times in the 2 minute neighborhood (definitely a respectable neighborhood for me). This was definitely a lot of fun and I think I will specifically take time out during our dives to work on this.

Trying to take advantage of the first weekend the kids don't have to wake up for school on Monday, Sunday morning we have a quick breakfast and decide to head East to see if we can find some more clean water and fish. We hit one or two of our marked spots and were able to pick out a few nice ones from the schools we were finding. After not really hitting a whole lot of fish, we figured we should go a little further offshore and hit some deeper water since we really hadn't been running into any grouper at all and thought maybe we would find some in greater depths.

My brother in law spotted some very nice bottom in what our depth finder was marking as 48 FSW (but we all know that's an approximation at best) so we decided to jump in. The water was extremely clean and you could spot just about everything on the bottom from what was most likely over 50 FSW (true depth). As soon as I jumped in, I spot a black grouper on the bottom. I'm not sure if she's legal, but I'm hoping she'll get bigger as I get closer since she's so far away.  Just as I'm breathing up for the dive while keeping my eye on the fish and trying to keep my heart rate under control, a larger black object decides to move from its hiding place to the right of the fish I'm currently eyeing. This object swims out over the sand in between 2 reefs and I instantly recognize it as another black grouper, but this one I don't have any questions about!

I immediately begin pursuing it from the surface. Luckily for me, the fish decides to stop running and tries to camouflage itself among some rocks on the bottom so I stop to rest and begin breathing up again as I was a little winded from chasing her. From this distance, I'm worried that she will try to run again as I am descending, so I'm trying to stay as calm as possible so as not to spook her. I let the worry of her running override the fact that I knew I hadn't rested enough and decided to try a descent on her. As I'm drawing closer to her, I am forced to realize that I didn't breathe up enough and I might not have the breath to take a good solid shot on her, so I abort and calmly return to the surface. I realize I don't want to take any chances and wait until I'm good and ready before descending again.

This time, I'm feeling pretty good on the descent and I just let myself drop on her only moving my fins to steer my dropping body to make sure I'm coming in directly above her. As I draw closer and closer, I'm sure my brother in law is wondering why I haven't shot yet, but I know you can't tell how close (or far) I am from the perspective of the surface. I try to keep from getting too excited as I get closer realizing that she may just sit still long enough for me to get a clean shot off. When I'm about 5-7 feet above her, I line up the shot (while also getting ready to open the drag on the reel in case she takes me for a ride) and pull the trigger. A perfect stone shot! She doesn't even quiver. I immediately start to surface with my first prize grouper of the summer in tow. As I surface I really get to see that she is a good 15-16 lbs and I'm fist pumping all the way to the surface.

As we swim around the reef some more we find a sunken crane boom (with winches and all) around which dog snappers, cero makerels and black margates are congregating. I only dove and shot on one mutton on the boom but unfortunately I missed, as the boom was resting at about 60 FSW and I hurried my shot due to that darn urge to breathe (my Aeris F10 read 48 FSW and I was a good 10 feet from the bottom)... I am sure we will return to this spot and I hope to put up some video after we do because an apparent miscue with my camera kept me from getting the grouper shot on film (still pissed about that one). Until then, at least I got the grouper monkey off my back after weeks of being skunked.