Question New to US (and FL)

[Divin'Papaw]

Here are my YouTube playlists for the various Palm Beach County locations being discussed:

Palm Beach:



Blue Heron Bridge:



Jupiter:



Boynton Beach:

 

[omer1]

Thanks for the warm welcome to the site and all the great information!! Love all the videos.

I prefer 'wild' sharks to fed sharks diving, but it is certainly an experience that I believe would be fun. I know there's stigma around baiting and feeding sharks so they appear for divers, but I believe there's value to that type of diving - if a shark is worth more $ alive and fed than dead and shipped to Asia, things will start to change. At least I hope so.

 

[Dan]

I spent a month diving in Thailand in February 2022 without seeing any shark. Sad! We don’t want Florida to be come like that.

 

[Dan]

Cuba has a way of controlling the pesky Lionfish by letting DM to spearfish them and feed the dead Lionfish to the sharks, while guiding us, to teach the sharks to hunt for Lionfish. As a result, we saw a healthy number of sharks there and low number of Lionfish.

 

[omer1]

Cuba has a way of controlling the pesky Lionfish by letting DM to spearfish them and feed the dead Lionfish to the sharks, while guiding us, to teach the sharks to hunt for Lionfish. As a result, we saw a healthy number of sharks there and low number of Lionfish.

I wish they would organize/ let us hunt Lionfish in Eilat - beautiful fish but I effin hate them (everywhere except the indo-pacific where they are native and where they should be).

Definitely a bucket list item of mine to do some lionfish hunting diving in the Caribbean.

In the specific Cuba case you mention - do they let all the divers spear them and feed to the sharks or only the local dive guides? It's an absolutely awesome solution in my opinion to have sharks prey on lionfish, a win-win-win-win for everyone.

 

[Dan]

In the specific Cuba case you mention - do they let all the divers spear them and feed to the sharks or only the local dive guides? It's an absolutely awesome solution in my opinion to have sharks prey on lionfish, a win-win-win-win for everyone.

Not what I am aware of, at least none of the guests spearfish the Lionfish when I was there. Only DM / guide did it. My job was only to count the Lionfish and report / point it to the DM, so he could jab the sucker and feed it to the Reef Sharks.

DM tried to teach Nassau Grouper to eat Lionfish once, but the Grouper did not like it. The Grouper had a fit, after swallowing the Lionfish, tumbling around on the sandy bottom, making a cloud of dust, then spat out the dead Lionfish, left the scene. Not even in a minute later, a Reef Shark grabbed the remnant of badly chewed up Lionfish and ran off, chased by other Reef Sharks.

 

[omer1]

Not what I am aware of, at least none of the guests spearfish the Lionfish when I was there. Only DM / guide did it. My job was only to count the Lionfish and report / point it to the DM, so he could jab the sucker and feed it to the Reef Sharks.

DM tried to teach Nassau Grouper to eat Lionfish once, but the Grouper did not like it. The Grouper had a fit, after swallowing the Lionfish, tumbling around on the sandy bottom, making a cloud of dust, then spat out the dead Lionfish, left the scene. Not even in a minute later, a Reef Shark grabbed the remnant of badly chewed up Lionfish and ran off, chased by other Reef Sharks.

Oh, that's awesome, must've been a sight to see.

I guess he got one of the barbs stuck inside and couldn't handle the venom.

If there's ever a trip like that - spearing lionfish and feeding sharks around you - count me in!

 

[Dan]

DM in Tiger Beach does the same, spearfish Lionfish and feed it to Reef Sharks, between Tiger Shark diving event, as shown in the video, below (at time11:38 on).

 

[Dan]

If there's ever a trip like that - spearing lionfish and feeding sharks around you - count me in!

Go to Tiger Beach with Dolphin Dream. It’s an awesome trip. They leave from Riviera Beach Marina, under the Blue Heron Bridge. Talk to the Dolphin Dream DM, David Finch, about spearfish Lionfish. He may tell you more detail info about such event.

 

[Belzelbub]

Didn't know they do shark feeding in FL, thought that was a Tiger Beach thing.

Technically, they don't. Shark feeding is illegal in FL. So, that means they have to be outside of FL state waters. In the Atlantic, that just means 3 miles offshore.