It's been so long since someone posted here that the thread was on page 2! Let's never let that happen again
I went out Saturday on a private boat. We did all dives north of the inlet with the goal of finding lionfish.
It was a beautiful day. Forecast was for 3 ft seas. We had a strong westerly wind to start the day, and seas were a tame 2ft. Visibility was 50ft and there was a strong north current all day.
Why do we talk about wind direction from the direction it comes from, but when talking about current, we say the direction it's going?
Water temp on all dives was 78 to 79! I had my 5mm on and am glad I wasn't hot, but it's time to wash and hang that baby up until much later in the year.
We did 3 tanks.
We dove the cable spools, but with the current, even the lionfish were struggling and hiding under the spools. It was too much work and I left looking for some ledge structure. The last time I dove this spot we were looking for a lost speargun that we didn't find and there were some nice mutton snapper on it, but not this time. I saw a small goliath grouper and some small hogs. The rest of the fish weren't the kind you would spear.
I've been diving for 13 years and I'm sick of people asking me, "Did you see the hammerhead shark?" My answer has disappointedly been no. Well, that's now broken. Not only did I see one, but saw 2! I was looking around at the sea floor looking for fish when something caught my eye, and within 10 ft of me a hammerhead was swimming by on my right and then another swimming by on my left. They came out to check me out and just as quickly swam away. But I FINALLY saw a hammerhead!
For dive 2, my buddy hyper focused on lionfish said I should definitely see some nice porgy, mangroves, or yellow jacks. He didn't lie, but in the ripping current, it was a challenge. I did land a nice a porgy and yellow jack. One fish I hear is good but never shot was a spade fish. I tend to leave them alone as they are swimming in schools. They are also usually smaller than I'm interested in, but then I see a really big one swimming in a school of chub, and he made for fish #3.
I float my fish using the toothless smb with stringer. They are great. You can use the stringer spike to brain the fish, then string, and float. You get the fish off of you in less than a minute. The problem is, especially on strong current days with seas, the boat doesn't always see them. Unfortunately, they didn't see my yellow jack float up. We drove up and down the ledge and couldn't find it. Out of the 6 I bought, 3 are now missing. I have had 3 returned, but I'm still down 3 at this point. If you see one, enjoy the fish, but please call me so I can pick up or pay you to ship it to me
. I could be bribed into trading a lobster tail or 2 to get it back. My name and number are on them.
As the day progressed, the winds shifted to northerly winds.
Dive 3 was a bust for lionfish and spearfishing. I did see a nice mutton, porgy, and a pair of large mangroves, but I couldn't get in a position with the current. On the dive, I was also towing the flag and seas were easily 3-5ft by this point. Even with my Tusa scooter, I was no match for the current, seas, and wind dragging on the flag. We ran into a small loggerhead turtle.
On the surface, for as rough as it was, it actually wasn't that bad, and no one got sick.
