So mostly the conditions during Brian’s visit have sucked. We got out to the reef for a little bit the first afternoon he was here, and braved the seas and crap vis for bit. We left at like 3 in the afternoon as soon as his flight got here, because hey tomorrow there is supposed to be tropical storm so get out while we could. Brian shot a nice trigger and a couple snappers before the wind drove me in. We tried going to Cotrell and backcountry stuff today and that was like milk, less then 8 feet of vis.
I guess on the upside Brian brought my new gun and it is a beast. Is it too much gun for the Keys? Maybe sometimes. It shoots the same size shaft as my 130cm rabitech and overall is only an inch or two bigger but boy does it look bigger. It’s teak, with an enclosed track and is currently loaded with 5/16 KJ shaft from Florida Freedivers. I want to scale the shaft down to the 7.5mm the same size I shoot now, but haven’t gotten the shaft yet. I am going to try shooting it a bit with the heavier shaft and see how that plays out. I was worried at first how it feels in the water because it looked so much bigger then my rabitech. This was extra worrisome because I had Brian make the gun substantially longer then the original version, and if it was too long now , I would have really felt like a real dickhead. Frankly, once it’s in the water aiming it doesn’t seem any different. Sure its harder to drag from behind you then the rail gun, but the smaller version of this gun was hard to drag through the water as well.
I have only practiced shooting the gun a couple times and both times it hit exactly what I was aiming for. I found this pretty interesting because generally when I use a different gun I can’t hit the broad side of a barn with it for awhile. This gun, I just picked it up and plugged two fish. One was a small chub was at about the max distance the gun could shoot with a single wrap. I think this gun is going to kick ass on the bar when this weather clears up. I think that this gun is going to be awesome for wahoo, or any day when the vis is 50+ feet. It might kind of suck for the shallows and dirty water though. But I can bring my rabitech for that.
Which means, oh no, I am going to be one of those people who brings two guns. I understand why people want to bring two guns and that’s fine in a big boat. But on my boat that can kind of be a problem. You figure 4 guys, now you have 8 guns laying around all over. Kind of gets out of control. I actually dove with a guy one time who brought like 3 or 4 guns, it seemed like kind of over kill. Right now I just bring my rabitech with two shafts, one with a single wrap, one with a double and use which ever is better for the situation. Now am going to have to bring two guns, maybe. Or maybe I will just use this big wood gun all the time, regardless of the situation like I do now with my rabitech.
