Went out spearfishing yesterday with Brad, Luis, Brian and Catherine. Luis had been out a couple days ago and said the vis was better to the west so we ran west. The water on the reef was crappy, less then 20 feet of vis. So headed out to the outer edge and found some clear water. We had clear water for about an hour. We drifted over some nice fishy rocks, marked a couple of nice ledges and saw nothing to shoot. There were a couple yellowtail boats in the area, maybe their chum slicks had drawn everything behind them? I don’t know but we drifted rocks and ledges that had a ton of small fish on them, but nothing bigger. Then the water silted up so we started driving.
We did a couple drifts over a deep water wreck, but didn’t see anything. I was about to drop the flashers down when noticed that the swivel on them was messed up, so I fixed it. Then I dropped the flashers in without reconnecting them to the mainline and they sailed off into the abyss. That’s like the third set of flashers lost this year.
So then we ran west, hoping if we got past the Boca Grande channel the water would clear. It didn’t, and after driving around forever, we dropped anchor on a small shallow rock pile. Brian and I shot some triggerfish and yellow jacks, Cat took some photos. The rocks had basically unlimited mangroves on them, with a big school of yellow jacks orbiting the rocks. I saw what might have been a black grouper or a large black margate disappear into a hole but that was it really.
Then we pulled anchor and drove back toward Key West. We made a couple stops along the way but the vis was still crap. For a minute there was some clear water on the bar on the way home, but it quickly silted up and a strong west bound current came with the bad vis.
Before we came home we went out to check the noaa buoy in 300 feet of water, but apparently they removed it, so we ran out there for nothing. All in the all the day was a big bust.
