Went out spearfishing the last couple days on Friday with Luis and Catherine and on Saturday with Jason and Andy and Catherine. On Friday we went out in front of Key West for half a day from 11:00 am-3:30 pm. Vis was pretty good topping out at around 60 feet. There were short black groupers all over the place, and some not so short. We drifted mostly in 30-60 feet of water, there was a west bound current which was very difficult to swim against. Luis shot a black grouper and I shot a mutton snapper and hogfish. We saw a big eagle ray but it was moving too fast to get any photos. Luis said he also saw a 40# kingfish but it stayed out of range.
Then on Saturday Catherine and I went out with Jason and Andy on their boat. We ran around 20 miles west, the vis was ok out there maybe 30-35 feet of vis but milkier on the bottom. We worked a bunch of rocks and ledges with not much luck. Most of the spots we hit had produced nice fish before but they were empty yesterday, which seemed crazy looking at the shear amount of small snapper, grunts and bait fish surrounding the rocks. We picked up some stuff here and there. I got 6-7# dog snapper. Jason and Andy shot some jacks, hogfish and mangroves but nothing huge. I checked under so many ledges and holes, finding nothing, that I got to the point where I felt angry when I saw a ledge. We also ran into a sea of jelly fish for a bit and every exposed bit of of skin was covered with jellyfish stings, almost like some sort of biblical plague.
On the way back to Key West we noticed some inshore patches were clear so we made a quick stop and in 10 minutes I shot a 12# red grouper and Andy shot a 10.5# mutton snapper: the two best fish of the day shot in 15 feet of water a stone’s throw from Key West.
Got a closed muzzle from mako for my rabitech gun. I like the open muzzle with the finned shafts, but I think for notched shafts the closed muzzle is better. Much less user error in reloading, at least for me.
