Saturday Catherine, Jason and I went out spearfishing. We tried to find wahoo but didn’t have any luck and spent hours drifting in blue nothingness. It was kind of fun but it got a bit boring. I think we need to anchor and set up a chum slick, but Jason said last time he set up a chum slick in that area he was rushed by a bunch of bull sharks. He doesn’t seem eager to repeat the experience.
After a bit we did some drifts over the reef in around 50 feet of water. I saw a nice cubera snapper around 30#. I might have been able to take a long shot on him, but tried to get a little closer and he bolted. We picked up some little fish, hog fish, mangroves and then moved in to a bit shallower water. We started working a ledge in around 35-40 feet of water and it seemed teeming with life. I chased a big dog snapper for a minute but missed him in the murk that was on the bottom. The water was really clear until about 10 feet off the bottom then it turned freezing and brown. I was getting a bit frustrated at this point. But I like seeing nice fish and missing them, a lot more than seeing nothing, like a bunch of trips the past couple months. The waters are cooling and the spearfishing is so much better in the winter. Jason picked up a few more snapper and hog fish, then we moved to find some clearer water.
The water cleared as we headed east, and we stopped on a few of the humps. There is an area on the reef that seems to have dozens of coral/rock humps surrounded by sand. Not sure what causes the bottom to be like that but it can be a productive area to fish. The humps are small like the size of a small house, so if the current is light you can anchor and a couple divers can work the whole thing in 20 minutes, then pull anchor and repeat on the next one. They might have a few good fish, they might deserted . I didn’t have my gps #s with me, so we just drove around until we sighted one of the “humps”. We stopped on one that was pretty weak, then on the next one I got a nice grouper. The next one was one of the best rocks I have seen on the humps but no one seemed to be home, except for unlimited mangrove snapper and goatfish. It’s funny one day the only thing there is bait fish and another there are 10 amberjacks with a nurse shark in tow, along with a couple black grouper all on one hump. I have 4 or so marked on my gps, and the 2 of the 3 we found yesterday I think I had never seen before. I am going to go out there one day and see how many of those things I can mark, that are worth jumping in on.
