Well the the vis is back. After a couple weeks of terrible vis , then a week away, then a week of 20+ knot winds I finally got out. The conditions are awesome but we did not boat a lot of fish. The vis was 50-70 feet most of the day and there was almost no current, which sounds great but like I said we did not find a lot of fish. Actually I saw a lot of big groupers and snappers but was unable to put any in the boat.
After the first week of grouper season it seemed like all the groupers had been sucked off the reef, well now it seems like they are back but only the smartest ones. I saw numerous nice blacks up to around 30# I also saw a few cubera snappers one of which was probably pushing 40# but I could not get a shot on any of them. You would think the lack of current would be a great advantage but with the crystal clear water I am not so sure. The groupers see you from really far away, and you cannot use the current to carry you on the dive. So the distance you can follow them horizontally is much less without the current at your back. Either way it was really fun .
I had hoped to shoot a ton of triggers or yellow jacks but there wasn’t really any around, they seem to prefer current. There was a lot of big mangroves out there. I shot a couple but personally don’t really like to eat them, so I left the rest alone.
Catherine and I had a big bull shark swim up on us which was kind of sketchy, they move so much more menacingly then the reef sharks. We had numerous jewfish encounters, with them trying to steal our fish. At one point I shot a big chub and cut it up to see if anything would come in on its falling body and the jew fish actually swam away from it.
