Local dive club kicks ass near Elliot key

  • Epic day for sure. Two PB's for me as well as a whole lot of fun. Even made it back minutes before a squall.




    (Fishpush disclaimer)


  • We've been trying for some time to get down to the Elliot Key area. Last time I went was over a year ago and it was a beautiful day filled with some nice water and nice reefs. Not to mention weve all been way too dry this summer due to stupid adult stuff like jobs. Despite various attempts it didn't really happen until now. I think when Frank went down for mini season and brought back his tales of clear blue water and piles of lobsters it reminded us all of what we were missing only an hours drive south.


    Last Saturday was looking nice, so Frank (Hardline), Judah (LunkerBuster), my brother, my dad, and I finalized the plans.


    We set out early enough to arrive at Homestead Bay front (nice park with nice boat ramps) at around 8. We crossed the bay and made it to our first spot by 9. Viz was much less stellar then expected, lots of particles in the water and thermoclines. But it was still plenty diveable. The first spot we stopped at produced a number of nice big bugs. I got to handgrab a nice one which is always fun for me. And judah shot the first fish of the day a hog.


    Looking for somewhere more fishy we pulled up anchor and hit our next spot. This was a very large reef we found last year with some interesting shallow structure(big coral heads) on top. With the sides dropping down to 30ft all around. Last year I got a nice grouper from a large coral head on top of the reef and wanted to find it again. I found it pretty quickly but only discovered a few monster black margates at home. I continued on top of the reef for a while mostly looking under coral heads for bugs. Suddenly, I see a school of big fish going by in the haze. It took me a few seconds to realize it was about 15 big ass yellowjacks. I slowly approached with a few kicks at a 45 towards them. Then I stopped and looked away a bit. Right as I stopped they started to turn in towards me and I dropped down and leveled off on one of them. As I was about to pull the trigger I noticed the one behind my target was a bit bigger and closer. I re adjusted to his front center mass and pulled the trigger. He took off like a bullet and took all of my short floatline and actually pulled me along a bit before getting wrapped up in the reef. I thought I lost him for a second but quickly realized he had tied up. Right after I pulled the trigger I notice a huge 8 foot nurse cruising just a few feet from where I pulled the trigger. He had no interest in the wounded yj though.


    We kept moving and looking for bugs and fish. The next spot we hit was relatively bug free. But was home to a couple of really keen blacks who seemed to really take enjoyment in teasing us. Im pretty sure they were taking bets on who could tease us worse. One was an absolute monster who I think everyone saw twice. He just did circles around the reef keeping us in check and making us feel bad.


    While looking for the big black I went to the outer edge of the reef and started hunting the slope. As I was coming around a bend a big red grouper was hanging out on the slope. Unlike most reds ive encountered he turned and holed up as soon as he noticed me and I noticed him. Didnt even swim a swim in his direction or dive.


    I paid attention to the tiny hole he went in and dove on it with my light. I saw that the tiny cave had a deeper side cave that he was sitting in looking out of. So I surfaced and rested, ready to go down and loose an arrow into the hole. After a few minutes I drop back down only to realize I had lost sight of the exact hole he was in. I frantically checked every crack trying to find the one with the sidecave and eventually gave up. I took a mental note of the vicinity and left, planning to come back a while later after he came back out. I hunted further down the reef for 10-15 minutes before I decided to go back. When I got back there was still no grouper, but this time I was determined to find the cave he was still in.


    After 5-6 dives I finally found it again, looked inside and he was still there, this time I made copious mental notes of its location before surfacing. I rested and dropped back down, lined up, and let one go. It was a good solid hit and the spear instantly started dancing and silt started flying. I gave the spear some good tugs before determining he was holed up and hooked up good. After about 8-10 dives I finally managed wrestle him out. I almost put another shot in with my hole gun. But was able to get my hand in behind his fins and pull him out.


    After that we moved again this time focusing on bugs. I was chilled from the thermoclines and tired from the grouper and stayed on the boat while everyone else hunted bugs. My dad got one which made his day (he had been sick all week and almost didnt go but was glad he did) And everyone else got a few more too. Frank shot a yellow jack that tied himself up on the reef. As he was getting him un tangled a blacktip came in to investigate. From the boat I could see frank swimming with his fish out of the water and yelled at the other divers to go over and help him. By then the blacktip was gone but so was franks shaft. He had cut the shooting line to get it out of the coral and then dropped it in the melee.


    I missed a few other fish a nice hog that got spooked right before I pulled the trigger. And we all got teased by a few other smart fish throughout the day.


    Around 2pm everyone got back in the boat and we considered hitting one last spot. Everyone seemed to have had their fill so we decided to head back in. It ended up being a great decision. After about 3 minutes heading west we noticed the sky growing darker along the entire horizon. Then a nice little bolt of lightning streak across the sky. We packed up everything that couldn't get rained on and headed into the storm. As we hit the edge of the storm (pictured above) the air temp dropped a good 10 degrees. By then we were almost to the ramp doing ilde speed down the canal. There were still a number of people headed out into the bay despite the black clouds as far as he eye could see coming to engulf everything. Maybe they were running away? :laughing: We quickly yanked the boat out of the water in the drizzle and were on our way. Not 2 minutes down the road the drizzle turned to a downpour which stayed half of the way home.


    The rest of the story involves cleaning boats and fish and all the un-fun stuff that we shouldn't talk about so I will skip it. Although Judah created chapter 2 today on the smoker.

  • Sweet vid, I liked how the camera was angle was blind to you grabbing the lobster.. like pulling a rabbit out of the hat.

  • Nate's right, it was like a magic trick. Made me LOL and rewind it 3 times.


    Very enjoyable compilation. I like the switching between diver action and serene sea life that you know is not going to get whacked. I thought it may have benefited from some some fade in/out transitions which are very easy to do with Pinnacle Studio 14.


    Steven, Mark is using the hero3 black. What you may want to ask is what fps he was shooting for the slow mo segment.

  • Thanks guys! I didn't think about the fact that it would only be apparent what I was doing after I did it with the handgrab behind the rock. I just said "hey frank can you shoot me hand grabbing this lobster?" Thinking about it now its so great haha.


    Dan I agree with the mixture of hunting and scenery hugely, usually the problem is im too busy hunting to chill for a little and take some cool scenic shots. So it becomes a compilation of gopro headstrap video. Franks much better about remembering to take the time to shoot various footage. And this time i stole some of his. I also feel like videos benefit the same from outside filming that tells the story better too. But again, bad at doing it lol. Definitely need to do some other transitions too.*


    Judah is correct. Some of the really clear correctly white-balanced shots were with the olympus tg-2. It's a pretty sweet little camera for getting decent pics in the water on a budget. It's waterproof to a decent depth with out a housing and has underwater shooting settings. It's biggest problem is it has trouble focusing so when you are filming spearing action you get sometimes blurry shots and video. But when they are in focus it does really nice stuff.


    Two other major factors were how shallow the tops of the reefs are out in Elliot key. And the moderately clear viz.Although my gopro videos from the sand were green and gross.


    I always shoot at 60fps so things can be slowed down some and still look good.

    Edited 6 times, last by Reefchief ().

  • Steven I should mention, freak mermen like yourself would crush the tg-2 without a housing. Its rated to 50 feet without the housing. But even as a topside cam its great.

  • Oh Shit :@
    My Stomping Grounds have been invaded :pray:


    Looks like you guys rocked! Nice job! Thanks for sharing :thumbsup1:

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