Need a flag/float - which one?

[scubadada]

300 ft looks like a Hell of a distance to me But I do not leave my flag when in Florida for anther reason.

Boats are supposed to stay 300 ft from a flag in the ocean. I often have a couple hundred feet or more of line out in a brisk current due to the depth and the scope. Of course, I'm generally too deep to be hit by a boat. When I ascend, the flag ends up essentially right over me. I have had my flag caught up with a boat a couple times. I put the reel on release and hope they figure it out before I am out of line, so far, so good. I don't know how much line I have on my reel, probably around 400 feet or so.

@rhwestfall you dive in a very interesting place, what do you see there?

 

[rhwestfall]

@rhwestfall you dive in a very interesting place, what do you see there?

5' Muskies (our version of barracuda), sheephead, smallmouth bass, sturgeon, crayfish, garbage, bottles, fishing gear, anchors, used condoms, used tampons, oh, and a sunken prohibition era smuggler with 500-1,000 beer bottles...

 

[JohnN]

When I was in Curacao, the shop owner told me a story about one of his instructors. The instructor was diving for fun in an area with a lot of fisherman and boat traffic. He popped his DSMB and felt someone pulling on it. When he surfaced the fisherman tried to argue that the DSMB was really his.

 

[rhwestfall]

The jet skis here just use them for turns....

 

[scubadada]

5' Muskies (our version of barracuda), sheephead, smallmouth bass, sturgeon, crayfish, garbage, bottles, fishing gear, anchors, used condoms, used tampons, oh, and a sunken prohibition era smuggler with 500-1,000 beer bottles...

ooh, the beer bottle boat seems interesting

My last trip to SE Florida, April 21-28

 

[rhwestfall]

It is all fun until you find a really big pair of women's underwear.....

soiled....

 

[Marie13]

5' Muskies (our version of barracuda), sheephead, smallmouth bass, sturgeon, crayfish, garbage, bottles, fishing gear, anchors, used condoms, used tampons, oh, and a sunken prohibition era smuggler with 500-1,000 beer bottles...

Do you guys get the burbot aka lawyerfish?

 

[rhwestfall]

Do you guys get the burbot aka lawyerfish?

Burbot or eelpout are in the calm deepwater, and usually on the wrecks in Erie. The current in the River is too much for them...

 

[rhwestfall]

ooh, the beer bottle boat seems interesting

My last trip to SE Florida, April 21-28

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that water tastes yucky...

 

[tmassey]

you dive in a very interesting place, what do you see there?

We dive in the Saint Clair River, which is quite a bit upstream, but a very similar dive.

Here’s what we see: A Huge, Ancient Lake Sturgeon Has Been Lurking In The Detroit River

I’ve seen several dozen sturgeon on a single dive. Most aren’t that big, but easily 5 to 10 are 5 feet or greater. They look so relaxed and peaceful in the screaming current, but for us it’s darn near uncontrollable.

Besides the excitement of navigating the current, it’s nice to be in water with 50+ feet visibility. There are shipwrecks, pretty river stones, clay bluffs, snags of who knows what to pick through, fishing tackle and sinkers, musket balls and other shot from forts built in the 18th century, Taconite from freighters, fossils (especially Petoskey stones, our state stone), remnants of past salvage operations, random garbage people have thrown in the river and a strange variety of freshwater fish and invasive species.

I’m not saying it’s everyone’s cup of tea, and it certainly isn’t as obviously beautiful as a Caribbean reef, but it’s ours, and we like it.