Went out yesterday and the day before, and on Tuesday Luis and I went out. Originally Luis had a doctor’s appointment, but the 6 knot winds and potential for shooting wahoo caused him to reschedule it. When he arrived in the morning he said “have plenty of time for doctor appointments when I am dead”. We headed out west and found clear water but no sun. The water vis was very good like 60-70 feet but it lacked the crystal clear gulfstream blue quality that was apparent every other time we have seen wahoo. This was kind of disappointing and we didn’t see any all day. We drifted all day in water 50-240 feet deep. The first half of the day we passed on reef fish but when afternoon hit we just started shooting stuff.
The amount of fish we saw was pretty incredible, although most were not considered “quality fish”. Drifting in from the drop-off in waters 70-90 feet we would be greeted by huge schools of triggerfish, spade fish and King Mackerel. All these fish would come in mass at the flashers we were using. I saw one school of king fish that must have had 50 fish in it, and on another drift a few miles away Luis saw a school of kingfish that had hundreds in it. We shot four king fish. The school of mackerel had relatively small fish in the 7-10 pound range. I also shot a 37# pound Amberjack (gutted), not really a big amberjack but a decent one for freediving in the Keys, and the largest I have shot so far. Luis had brought out a big riffe bluewater gun, rigged to kill something massive. Although we saw nothing massive tested it out on the king fish and he was happy how well it performed.
One of highlights of the day was Luis saw a group of cubera snapper in the water column in around 80 feet of water. He didn’t get one but it was pretty cool to see regardless.
The next day I went out with Andy and Brian from West Palm Beach. Brian is captain of the USA spearfishing team and an instructor for a free diving class. We dove some reef and wrecks in front of Key West. It was a half day and it was dark but the vis was still good so it was a good time. We didn’t shoot anything that exciting. I got a small cubera and Brian also shot a cubera but some sharks came and ate it. We shot some yellow jacks, and snapper.
Probably the most interesting thing we saw was massive amounts of black grouper on the reef. I guess I shouldn’t say massive after seeing videos of some of the spawning gags up north, but a lot of black grouper compared to what I have ever seen diving so far. One ledge had one fish that was pushing 35 pounds and 3 other fish all in the 10-15 pound range next to it. It just hung out and looked at me, I could have shot it 3 times. Seemed like everywhere we dove there was a black grouper looking at us.
Went out yesterday and the day before, on Tuesday Luis and I went out. Originally Luis had a doctor appointment, but the 6 knot winds and potential for shooting wahoo caused him to reschedule it. When he arrived in the morning he said “have plenty of time for doctor appointments when I am dead. We headed out west and found clear water but no sun. The water vis was very good like 60-70 feet but it lacked the crystal clear gulfstream blue quality, that was apparent every other time we have seen wahoo. This was kind of disappointing and we didn’t see any all day. We drifted all day in water 240-50 feet deep. The first half of the day we passed on reef fish but when afternoon hit we just started shooting stuff.
The amount of fish we saw was pretty incredible, although most where not considered “quality fish”. Drifting in from the drop off in waters 70-90 feet we would be greeted by huge schools of triggerfish, spade fish and King Mackerel. All these fish would come in mass at the flashers we were using. I saw one school of king fish that must have 50 fish in it, and on another drift a few miles away Luis saw a school of kingfish that had hundreds in it. We shot four king fish, the school of mackerel had relatively small fish in the 7-10 pound range. I also shot a 37# pound Amberjack(gutted), not really a big amberjack but a decent one for freediving in the keys, and the largest I have shot so far. Luis had brought out a big riffe bluewater gun, rigged to kill something massive. Although we saw nothing massive he was happy how it performed well , and tested it out on the king fish.
One of highlights of the day was Luis saw a group of cubera snapper in the water column in around 80 feet of water. He didn’t get one but it was pretty cool to see regardless.
The next day I went out with Andy and Brian from west palm beach. Brian is captain of the usa spearfishing team and an instructor for a free diving class. We dove some reef and wrecks in front of Key West. It was a half day and it was dark but the vis was still good so it was a good time. We didn’t shoot anything that exciting. I got a small cubera and Brian also shot a cubera but some sharks came and ate it. We shot some yellow jacks, and snapper.
Probably the most interesting thing we saw was massive amounts of black grouper on the reef. I guess I shouldn’t say massive after seeing videos of some of the spawning gags up north, but a lot of black grouper compared to what I have ever seen diving so far. One ledge had one fish that was pushing 35 pounds and 3 other fish all in the 10-15 pound range next to it. It just hung out and looked at me, I could have shot it 3 times. Seemed like everywhere we dove there was a black grouper looking at us.
it should have seemed more smokey then the smaller lighter colored batch I sent you, the second batch was smoked almost twice as long as the first batch.
Looks like the smoker is gonna be busy for a while again. I made another batch of dip with some of that AJ (froze it in vacuum bags). That batch was definitely noticeably different texture wise to that first “bad batch” you had. It didn’t seem as smokey as the “bad batch” either. Not sure why. Still good though.