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West coast Florida spearing(6.9.08)

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Noah

Well-Known Member
May 6, 2008
74
3
48
Me and a few H&L buddies went off of Bradenton to 130' Mon to hit a few #'s and see if I could find me a red snap on one breath . Well, we found them and alot of other critters too! Great vis, probably better than eighty feet with a slight layer of murk on the bottom 20'. Current was ripping to the N, seas 1-2 then flattening out the rest of the day(until the ride in near shore ).

Put the 3rd band on the ol' Wong and, to tell the truth, I wish I had a couple more on the gun with the vis we had. I'm gonna have to get a hold of Daryl and see if I can get a 5 hole muzzle to throw on.... Went with the reel, although I had rigged up a float, it was just too much of a pain in the ass with the current.

Tried fishing at first but everytime we got something decent on it was inhaled by either the Goliaths or sharks. Brought quite a few nice "heads" up. After a few hrs of playing tug of war, I was ready to try my luck under the water. Took a little convincing to get my two spearo apprentices in the water when I reported a nice little hammerhead upon first entering the waterrofl but they finally did get in, to my relief, as I was planning on some pretty deep dives and greatly appreciated the support.

Sharks were everywhere, only saw one HH and the rest were all Duskies. We were periodically visited by 100's of 20-30# AJ's, a dozen or so Permit, which always seemed to keep their distance. Huge schools of Jack Treval and Rainbow runners also periodically came through.

I started doing drops about every 15 min, working my way down to around 110'. After applying my "secret techniques" , I managed to score several nice AR's right off the bat. First one tried to hole up on me and about whooped me trying to muscle him up to the surface, all the while being escorted by 4-5 Duskies. Lucky for me one of them bit half the tail off and it sure made the fight a lot easier Quickly limited out on AR's and went on to the school of 5-10# mangos hovering around the wreck. I was greatly tempted to work the bottom for some grouper, but considering the limited experience of my support divers, I decided to wait till next time. After playing "keep the ball away" with a few Jew's I limited on my other snapps and moved on to the Jacks and permit.

As I was lining up on a nice jack, I saw a lone permit coming in about 75' out. I was about 60' down and surrounded by a torrent of AJ's. I guess he was just coming in to see what all the action was about as I let one loose at a distance of 20' or so. What should've been a stone shot, ended up being back and low from the long shot... and it was on That sombitch drug me around like a rag doll, went all the way to the wreck and somehow, wasn't inhaled by one of the massive Goliaths.

Stoned my AJ, then watched Frank and Jeff get their first AJ's.... nothing like seeing a newby get drug around by a reef donkey roflThey were using Biller 48's tied off to the boat for safety. Several times they both had a half dozen Permit come up within feet of their backside only to vanish before they could turn around :head

No pelagics to speak of, maybe next time. Was, all in all, a great trip with great friends and I hope we do it again soon and deeper. Can't seem to get these pics to show... but here's the links

Quick limit...
http://


Permit cries uncle
http://


Yep, I'm pretty stoked
http://


Trying to keep the Duskies off (and get my eyeballs back in my head from a taxing dive )
http://
 
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