Went out Sunday with Catherine and Brad. Winds were close to 15 knots at the beginning of the day and died down in the after noon, blowing from the south east. Most of the day there was a little less the 1 knot east bound current. The gulf stream is about 18 miles out.
We headed out around 8:30 am and the whole reef was green and stirred up, we drove to the drop off and the vis was still terrible We drove the bar for awhile west and vis was still terrible. Visibility was maybe 15 feet on the main reef and 30 feet on the bar, and as you swam down it got worse, on the bottom on the bar it was 10 feet tops.
So we headed offshore to look for dolphin, on the way out I noticed the line of blue water was pushing in towards the reef, and if it continued it would at least be on the bar as soon as the tide changed. We ran a little awhile offshore, found some scattered weeds but didn’t see anything particularly compelling. So we ran back in.
We found the blue line was on the bar, and if you stayed in 50-60 feet of water there was 60-70 feet of hazy blue visibility We would jump in drift for a little bit and then we would drift into the green water , so we would head back out.
We shot triggerfish and missed a variety of other fish. I blew several shots on mutton snapper, one was particularly nice probably pushing 28 inches. I have found when shooting fish on the bottom in 50-60 feet of water they have to be kind of dumb, because I just don’t have the breath hold to be chasing them around at that depth, at least not yet. We saw several nice kingfish. We also saw a bunch of big yellow jacks, I didn’t shoot any yesterday. I am going to chill out on shooting yellow jacks for a bit. They are blast to shoot and good to eat , but if I shoot a couple 15# yellow jacks it takes my girlfriend and I like a month to eat them. We eat a lot of fish, and have found the more fish you eat the less you want to eat frozen or fish that isn’t very fresh.
As it got later in the afternoon, the blue water kept pushing in until most of the bar seemed like it had 60-80 feet of visibility. The bar is kind of funny place to spearfish, there are huge areas of it where there is nothing, its like a big desert. then sometimes you will find a mound with like thousands of yellowtails hanging out but not one fish to really spear. All in all I think the main reef is more productive for bottom fish, but on the bar you get more shots at larger pelagics. You often see big kingfish, and I have seen and caught large Wahoo and black fin tuna on the bar. There is also tons of people hook and lining on the bar, which might be why the bottom fishing isn’t as good.
Other interesting thing about yesterday is number of sharks, I think we saw 6-7 sharks yesterday. I think that is the most I have ever seen in one day. We saw lemon, bull and sandbar sharks, although reef, sandbar, and dusky sharks all kind of looks the same to me. Most were medium sized, less the 6 feet long, but we did see one big one, which was lemon shark, I think. The big one turned and took off as soon as it saw us. The sharks all pretty much stayed on the bottom, except for one, more curious, small one. Which came up to check me out when I was actually climbing into the boat. It definitely made me climb in quicker.
Also even worse then sharks, there was jellyfish larvae in the water. I got stings on my neck, forehead and ears. Pretty much everywhere that wasn’t covered by lycra. Most people get little stings and they go right away but I get little stings and they itch for like a week, so no speedo swimming for me.
