West Beach Paddlewheeler 4-1-12

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

SuPrBuGmAn

Contributor
Messages
12,436
Reaction score
297
Location
Tallahassee, FL
# of dives
500 - 999
My fiance's first cousin got married in Pensacola last weekend, and since I played nice, theawesomefish and I treated ourselves to a shore dive on Sunday morning. Since FL fishing laws are so incredibly jacked up when it comes to spearfishing off the beaches, we headed to the friendlier waters of Alabama. Friday and Saturday had rougher surf, but it layed down by Sunday, waters were turquoise, but slightly milky it seemed.

Onsite, we geared up and hit the water, making our way past the small breakers and experienced only a little bit of surge. The first 5-6' of depth was quite nice at 75F and about 10' of visibility. Under that, we hit a nasty particulate layer of slightly cooler water(74F) with 2-5' visibility. Unfortunately, the wreck we were diving sat within that nasty particulate layer. Theawesomefish had never been to this location, nor has she ever been spearfishing, so it was all around a new experience for her. While the visibility kept her from getting familiar with the wreckage, she atleast got a taste for spearfishing! In our short 30 minute dive, she took 3 sheepshead using a 36" garage sale gun, all of which were a good size. I shot 2 sheepshead and 2 flounder with a polespear, but lost one of the sheepshead due to not having a stringer and losing it while attempting to "string" it to my dive flag line. I was monkey diving, which didn't really affect my fishing much, but it left me without my trusty stringer and fish-killin-knife. The visibility kept us from sight-seeing much. The wreck is covered in fish though. Sheepshead are thick, but you could also already find flounder and a couple mangrove snapper. Spades and butterfly fish were also present as were southern rays. Would have been an excellent dive if only the visibility permitted some lookin around.

Anyway, we came, we conquered, then we went way the hell back to Tallahassee.
 
Great report Mat. I'll be down mid May to do some spearing and fishing; we are dragging a boat along. Although we are staying on Ono Island, west beach is not far away! Please PM me with directions and provide any other fishing holes (within 10 - 15 miles of shore) that will be great spearing spots. Yep I am also trolling on Spearboard.

Howard
 
phil - most of what I know is public info(aside from a few choice beach dives). I've had luck spearing on the liberty ships, and tugs out of OB. The dredge can do pretty well if it hasn't been hit up too much...
 
Great report Mat. I'll be down mid May to do some spearing and fishing; we are dragging a boat along. Although we are staying on Ono Island, west beach is not far away! Please PM me with directions and provide any other fishing holes (within 10 - 15 miles of shore) that will be great spearing spots. Yep I am also trolling on Spearboard.

Howard

You can get several years of good spearfishing from public numbers. The team I dive with has a handful of private numbers, but honestly, we just save those for red snapper season to keep from being harassed by hook & liners (we had two incidents last year where we literally had to call the Coast Guard because of boats running into our flag zones and then loitering with props spinning over bubbles) who want to argue about dive flag laws, and how they're meaningless. I've also had lead weights miss my skull by inches. Seriously, red snapper season is ridiculous on weekends.

Anyway, Pensacola and OB have plenty of fish, but there's probably less spearfishing pressure the further you head West, which might mean easier kills. In May, your biggest problem will be trying not to shoot red snapper, which will be EVERYWHERE.
 
I saw that! Its been too long brotha.

I'm going to head home a few times this year for some flounder runs, I'll letcha know when.








I stopped by the Whiskey Wreck, BTW, those damned jet-ski rental guys have their bouys up right on-top the wreck again. I'll never understand why they've got to run over that little slice of beach, with all the available beach all around them?!?!



phil - can't remember if I've ever asked you, but how'd you come up with your screen name? Howmotrek would be less confusing, lol!
 

Back
Top Bottom