The Vis has been terrible for like over a month now. It actually looked like it was getting better for a minute but as of yesterday was worse then before. We have had some pretty crappy days out on the water as of late. I pretty much think summer diving in the keys sucks and anyone who only dives in the summer is suspect, but I try to keep that thought to myself as to not alienate my fellow divers.
We did have a pretty great day the other day on the water just Jason and myself. The day was going ok, we had gotten a few reds, big greys and we had also stumbled into a huge school of triggerfish on the reef. I have never seen a school of like 100 triggers on the reef like that in 35 feet of water. It was actually on the exact same stretch of reef I shot a 45# cubera on years ago. Here is that report if you are interested.
Anyways actually I have another story to add to this day, we had recently received our new UHT shafts from Addiction spears. Addiction spears make stainless steel shafts, kind of like riffe only way better and they actually cost less then riffe. Anyways as anyone who dives a little knows stainless shafts are not as strong as the spring steel south African shafts but they don’t rust. At first I though it was better to have the stronger shaft but over time I have come around to the stainless. For one I shoot track guns now and the track will rub the coating of the spring steel. When the coating comes of the spring steel it turns to rust. The coating will just naturally come off over time as the shaft hits sand and reef etc. Actually the coating will just come off, I left a KJ shaft outside and it just turned to rust, with no abrasions to it. Apparently rain and sun is enough to remove the coating.
Anyways Addiction is making these UHT shafts which are basically a different type of stainless where they are actually stronger then the spring steel (also way more expensive). Seeing as we bend shafts weekly at this point, we got some to try out. So far they are performing good but since all the black grouper seem to have left the reef I can’t say how good. What I can say is that the Addiction welded-on floppers are ridiculously strong. I shot the UHT shaft into a hole and the flopper toggled way up inside. I could not reach the flopper and decided to break the flopper off. I could not break it off. Try this with a regular shaft, riffe , mako whatever, you will be surprised at how easy the flopper breaks off when it is pulled against something with no give to it. So then I went down with a scuba tank and tried to break it off. It still would not come off, finally I took a bent shaft and used a dive weight to chisel away the rock around the hole to get the shaft out.
Once we beat up the triggers and grays on that ledge, I took Jason out to 130 feet and dropped him on a pinnacle out there on a scuba tank. He came up and said he had shot a big grouper but it had rocked up and silted up this cave so much that he ran low on air trying to get it, so he had to come back up. Apparently he had tied his shooting line to the reef and left his gun down there with it. Finally after decompressing he went back down and retrieved that grouper along with another smaller one.
The fish weighed out at 47#. I hope to get one like that free diving someday maybe this December.
