Headed out this Sun. after the front to Long Key for another spearfishing adventure. The drive down was pretty cool as we had about 50 ft viz on the road do to the heavy fog, kinda reminded me of my midnight drives up to Okeechobee for the annual duck hunts with my uncle. Well NOAA said it'd be under 10mph winds with some scattered showers, my bud had gone spearfishing the day prior (Sat.) and encountered under 5' viz...but man I've been jonzin' to wet me gills and needless to say shoot another carbon teak speargun I just finished custom making for a client....so we decided to "travel light" and hit Long Key on the ski's.6 on the am found us driving down the the spearfishing stretch with my custom dive bag strapped to the back of my ski...arriving about 8'ish, by then the fog fizzled and we were greeted with a beautiful day, zero wind, seas calm, I mean less than 1'...current was very light, viz was practically T-B everywhere we dropped. I had some new spearfishing waypoints I had picked up on the last spearfishing adventure and I wanted to investigate it a bit more so me and the O'V drew up a game plan and plotted our way to the spearfishing spots.
WOW every place we hit had fish in the house, seemed the ocean was crawling with Gags, some shorty's, but most legal and healthy we filled our limit within the hour and my Miami made custom bubinga carbon spearfishing gun was havoc on the fish . We managed to shoot a few nice mules (Big Yellow Jacks) quite a few hogs, a decent sheepshead, and probably my personal best octupus (didn't shoot him though). Damn them boys are masters of deception!. We were drifting a spot and my eye caught some telltale movement, that quickly registered as an 8-legged critter, next to a pretty big sea fan, I gulped some air and went down to get him in about 40', when I reached the fan I searched and he was nowhere to be found, I left my custom speargun marking the spot and followed my low profile floatline up. I was certain he was around so I just chilled on top waiting him out. He finally made a move....he was about 6" from my bubinga carbon speargun and about a foot away from the seafan, in other words he was right in front of my nose and I never saw him- took another gulp submerged, followed my low profile floatline down and poked him...someone say SUSHI.
And of course, no story is complete without the one that got away. We went to our favorite spearfishing permit spot (about 3.5 miles out) to find us a permiso, didn't see any, but as I was headed to the ski I saw what may have been the biggest permit I have ever seen (including H&L) in Florida, damn thing looked like a car door (well a SmartCar, car door;). I dropped to intercept his path, but he wanted none of that, so he switched on me and headed towards sand. I sped after him, my lungs screaming AIR and took a hailmadre shot (read as a 20
+ foot shot) that got him about a 6" forward of the tail. My clients custom speargun did not dissappoint hitting its mark, but that permit went beserk and launched into high gear, towards the sand I fed him my low profile floatline and chased on top, well I guess he wisened up and made a U'ee back to the structure, my heart sank as I new the flopper did not clear, and he'd probably not hold. When he got there the low profile floatline went slack, but I optimistically and cautiously, approched the hole as I did the floatline moved again, as soon as I saw him (inches from me grabbing the shaft) he shook and hit the shaft against a rock and the rest is a spearfishing story...of the one that got away :(
Not complaining though all in all it was a great spearfishing adventure at Long Key!
Till next spearfishing report, tight bands, straight shafts, and smooooooooth triggers!
Tone
http://www.settingsteelspeargear.com/
Tone
http://www.settingsteelspeargear.com/
a color deck of a few other reef denizens we got on a spearfisjing Keys adventure
gotta love spearfishing the Florida keys a huge porgy shot with speargun and a bit of luck
Here is a nice Mule yellow jack caught while spearfishing in Key west
A nice mangrove snapper and tasty florida spiny lobster caught freediving Biscayne bay
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a clean stone shot red grouper
Another day of spearfishing fun
