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  • 2017

NO Black grouper
Florida/Atlantic Grouper Season will open in:

NO Hogfish
Florida/Atlantic Federal Hogfish Season will open in:

Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2017
Sat30Dec2017

Dec 28, 2017 - They Don't Always End Up In The Cooler

Information
Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2017 | December 30, 2017 | Print
grouper, snapper, mutton snapper, key biscayne,
 Wind Seas Viz Temp
N-NE 10-18mph 2-4' 30' 77F

As 2017 was drawing to a close, I decided it was time to get back on the water and give it one last try before grouper season closed on January 1. With the Christmas break upon us, my kids were home and off from school, so we decided to make it a family day on the water (with the exception of my wife that was unfortunately at work today). Throw in my daughter's oldest friend for good measure, and we were off! The forecast wasn't exceptional, but definitely tolerable especially since all the kids had basically been raised on boats. So with my hopefully good luck passengers aboard we headed to one of my local spots that have been very productive over my last few trips and I was hoping for more of the same today.

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Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2017
Fri6Oct2017

June 9-12, 2017 - Grand Cay, Grand Time - 3rd Annual Pirate Trip

Information
Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2017 | October 05, 2017 | Print
bahamas, pole spear, hogfish, nassau grouper, tiger grouper, Grand Cay, walkers cay, yellowfin grouper, pirates, Rosies Place

 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 wait for this one. There's talk about new gear and new training tools and regimes, but the one thing that we knew wasn't going to be different was the destination. It was an immediate and unanimous decision to re-visit Grand Cay near Walker's Cay once again. Although we all like the idea of new adventures, we were all looking forward to taking advantage of last year's experiences for this year's adventure. With the usual issues coming and going of who's in, who's out, which weekend, would we go Thursday through Sunday or Friday through Monday, there were actually a couple of times when the entire trip was in question.

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Category: SpearBlog 2017
Fri5May2017

May 1-3, 2017 - Grouper Opening 2017 - Why are we the only ones out here?

Information
SpearBlog 2017 | May 05, 2017 | Print
speargun, grouper season opening, florida keys, marathon, 2017
 Wind Seas Viz Temp
E-SE 18-24mph 4-6' 5-15' 79F

The excitement for grouper opening started a few weeks ago when my brother in law and I started discussing our plans. There was talk of scouting on Sunday and taking Monday through Wednesday off to maximize our time on the water. We would connect with our friends Lazaro and Chris and we were hopeful that we would have a good opening like last year. As usual, we talked timing, accommodations and weather forecasts. After talking about it for about a week, Lazaro told us to forgo the logistics and stay with him as his place would be empty (with the exception of himself).  We gladly accepted his generous invitation.

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Written by: Bob Diaz
Category: SpearBlog 2017
Tue14Feb2017

Feb 8, 2017 - Hump Day Staycation Surprise

Information
Bob Diaz | SpearBlog 2017 | February 14, 2017 | Print
spearfishing, lobster, hogfish, Miami, mangrove snapper, MIA032-17, Rubble Pile
 Wind Seas Viz Temp
 S/SE 7mph 2' 25-30' 73F

Disclaimer: No matter what I do or write, it is NEVER a good idea to dive alone. I do know better, but I'm old and stubborn (no excuses, just stating facts). No matter how cautious I am with staying in shallow depths, watching currents and waves, it's extremely dangerous to dive much less spearfish alone. The possibilities for life threatening situations are too numerous to count, so please don't follow my very bad examples.

Since October of last year, the weather has been pretty disagreeable, at least on the weekends. Week after week, I would watch forecasts that predict calm wind and seas for Wednesday but every week, those forecasts would turn ugly just in time for the weekend. So after suffering since October of last year and accumulating too much vacation time at work, I decided that the very next weekday that showed promise would be mine. As luck would have it, this past week had just one of those days.

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Bob Diaz - Monday, 26 July 2010 15:11

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....

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Monday, 07 June 2010 08:53

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...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Monday, 09 June 2014 16:50

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

Bob Diaz - Saturday, 30 January 2010 08:23

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...

SpearViews

Bob Diaz - Saturday, 28 September 2013 18:22

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

Bob Diaz - Wednesday, 08 February 2012 16:32

{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.

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SpearBlog 2012

Bob Diaz - Wednesday, 23 May 2012 17:43

It's hard to believe that I haven't had an opportunity to jump in the water since my last blog on Dec 30th of last year . That's right, so long ago that I can actually refer to it as "last year". That's because you're allowed to refer to past events as happening "last week", "a few weeks ago", "a month ago", and even "a few months ago", but when your're 5 months removed from something, it's time to give up the ghost and call it what it is... "last year." Which makes you realize that this year...

SpearBlog 2009

Bob Diaz - Wednesday, 08 July 2009 01:00

Seas: 1-2 feet Winds: 5-10 SSW Temp: 85 F Viz: 10 feet We took off this morning a little early to see if we could jump in the water a little before actual high slack tide just to see if we could take advantage of some cleaner water. To our joy and surprise, we were able to jump in an hour before the slack tide and make way through a couple of spots with a little better clarity than we had for the past couple of days. I was able to shoot a few nice sized hogfish and a couple of decent mangroves...

SpearBlog 2012

Bob Diaz - Monday, 18 June 2012 15:05

Seas: 2-3' Winds: 15-20 NE dropping to 10-15 SE in the afternoon Viz: 30-35' Temp: 82F "Third time's a charm", or so I thought... as I headed down for another shot at what would hopefully be my first "full" weekend of the Summer. With the boat in tow after working on it during the week to resolve fuel flow problems caused by the introduction of ethanol into our fuel supply (Thank you, big oil) I call ahead to have a friend turn on our A/C so temperatures are tolerable for our arrival. I get a...

SpearBlog 2009

Bob Diaz - Tuesday, 05 May 2009 01:00

Seas: 5-7 feet Winds: 15-20 SE Temp: 74 F Viz: 30-35 feet I decided to make an overnight trip this weekend and take a Monday off for the heck of it. I was hoping to be able to get into some snapper since the forecast had the weekend winds dying down (and hopefully the seas as well). Unfortunately, as you might have noticed from the stats above, neither of those things happened. The viz was awesome, but you had to weather some serious seas to fish it.

SpearBlog 2013

Bob Diaz - Monday, 10 June 2013 12:15

Seas: 2-4' Winds: 10-20 ESE Viz: 45-50' Temp: 81F So we head down this weekend without too much in the expectation department since it had been raining with 20-40 mph winds almost incessantly the entire week. While at work on Thursday, I take a quick glance at the forecast to see there was still a small craft advisory in effect and a call for 2-4' seas on Sat increasing to 3-5 on Sunday. Heading home from work Friday in what seemed like my umpteenth torrential downpour this week, I'm not too...

SpearBlog 2013

Bob Diaz - Tuesday, 28 May 2013 10:36

Seas: 1-3(am) 3-5(pm) Winds: 10-20 ENE (am) 20-25 ENE (pm) Viz: 30-50' Temp: 81F This week's forecast was calling for a fairly typical Memorial Day weekend, rainy and windy. But what were the chances that those charlatan voodoo witch doctors (more commonly known as meteorologists) would get it right this week? I've lost count of the number of times the meteorological evangelists promised wonderfully light winds and calm seas only for me to make the hike and arrive to find weather conditions...