Went out Thursday with Catherine, it was really nice day. Flat calm, visibility ranging from maybe 50 feet on the main reef and around 85 feet on the bar. Little less then a knot west ward current on the bar and even less current on the main reef.
We hit a small patch about halfway to the drop off, and all there was , was some barely legal hogfish , which we passed on. Then we hit a rocky uprising by the drop off. Seemed dead except for a few cero mackerels passing through. I ended up shooting a 14″ hog , something I probably would have passed on, but Catherine was taking all the meat home to NY. The commotion of the hog struggling attracted a mutton snapper, and red , grouper and a big barracuda. I shot the mutton with one gun, then had Catherine throw me the back up gun and shot the red grouper. Pretty fun five minutes.
Catherine got so hot in her wetsuit that she ditched it just to swim in a bikini. In some place the water was so warm it was irritating. Like dunking your head in bathwater, with the occasional jellyfish bite.
We drifted in the deeper water for bit where the week before there was a ton of triggers, but this time there was no triggers. I shot some mackerel, chased a nice mutton, but couldn’t get close. When I dove down to shoot a mackerel, a shark was swimming by under me. I though he might turn around and try to get the wounded mackerel but it didn’t. Although Catherine saw him cruising around a few minutes later. She tried to get a pic but the shark was too far away.
Then we hit a ledge in about 35-40 feet of water. Saw a prohibited permit, and bunch of grey/mangrove snappers. Catherine calls them swamp snappers. I usually don’t shoot them, because I don’t really like eating them. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but I prefer trigger fish and yellow jack over snapper. I try to shoot muttons mostly because they are considered so challenging, and they are better to eat the mangroves. I saw a couple bigger mangroves and shot one of them, he went 21 inches. Not a monster but bigger then the average ones on the reef.
Catherine said some porpoises swam by but I didn’t see them.
It varies sometimes daily, or even hourly
but it tends to more consistently better in the summer when there is less wind
I would say no, less vis makes spearfishing harder. Although they see you better too, you see so many more fish when the vis is better.
Does the vis vary throuought they year? for example, does it tend to be better in the winter or summer? does less vis make spear fishing easier?