A few from Belize

I had big plans yesterday even though we'd kind of missed the days after the full moon. Going to Turneffe, the fishiest place I know in Belize to see if we could scare up another king or maybe even a wahoo. But, my two buddies showed up 2 hours late so that blew the morning session and it's 25 miles out so we kind of have to run home before the evening session gets going or I'll be coming home in the dark.
My son and I gave it a look though. We jumped in and drifted along outside the wall for about a quarter mile. I had a flasher and we saw lots of baitfish, which more than a few times darted down for cover but I didn't see anything.
Jake got bored and decided to go for the dog snappers that had come out to check us out a few times. We found a nice school of them right where the reef top slopes from 40 feet down to about 90. They were playing with us and dropping down deep. We just kept diving down, acting uninterested in them and a few would veer off and come to check us out. I watched Jake nail two of them while I was on the surface. Nice.
A school of permit would cruise by every now and then and these horse eye jacks too. They were more spooky than usual and I had to go down about 40 feet to get a shot.
I lost one dog snapper. I used my big gun with the slip tip on for wahoo. It must have edged the spine and pushed the slide ring hard into the electrical tape I use so it WON'T slide. But it did and I think the slip tip didn't open. I hit him good but he slipped right off.
The day glassed off in the afternoon. Beautiful conditions.

Wong.

Two fathers and sons. The guy on the right in the picture, is the father of the guy in the back of the console.
Hopefully this is our wahoo team. The other son likes to drive the boat.... so we can drift.
Andre, the other father is from Jamaica and is 71. An inspiration. He feels bad sometimes because "I can't do what I used to do". But he's always the first one in the water.

Quote from Roberto Reyes

Hank
Very hard to tell, somedays there are sooo many fish, other days no fish, so
its hard to figure out how bad is it.
but, some studies have revealed places were 30% of population is lion fish, imagine that.
Also, seen videos of lion fish eating until fish tails are out of his mouth, stomack streches 30%
while eating.
And of course, you kill them and their bellies always full,always hungry, is not hard to imagine the
worse in a few years.

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Whoaa. 30% of the fish biomass is lionfish? They are gluttons. I had two in my aquarium when I lived in Iloilo, Philippines. I would feed them baby shrimp that I'd bring home from the hatchery. I couldn't believe how much they could eat.

I guess our only hope is that the local fish will learn, adapt and hide from the new predator.
If you dive in the Philippines, the reefs are packed with them too, but there are still lots of other fish....unless it's been dynamited.

Hit our favorite wall yesterday. Water was really green but there was a nice current line where it clearly divided into nice, clear warm water. Lots of grass and weeds on the surface too along the current line. We hunted that edge for about an hour with a flasher but nothing big only a few small ceros showed up. Wrong moon.
I was trying to hide myself back in the green water and hold the flasher out near the clear water. There was that much of a "wall". There was a big school of horse eyes, about 30 nice permit (we don't shoot them though) about 20 nice fat spade fish, barracudas, and some dog snappers and grouper on the bottom. A nice black came up near the surface following a school of 3-8 lb horse eyes. He spooked and dove for the bottom as soon as he saw me though.
We got 2 nice dogs, 2 black grouper, 1 yellow fin or yellow edge? grouper, an 11 lb horse eye, and two barracuda. I shot the cudas for a couple guys on my staff for Christmas. These guys love them.
I tried KitKat bars for flashers. A few fish came in but then I got hungry so that ended.

Note the sweatshirt. It was really cold here yesterday. Lower 60s in the am and evening. Cold ride home.

Went out Sunday with two guys who are the spearfishing legends of Dangriga. One is my kind of regular buddy, (the guy holding the two snappers) with his younger son on the right of the pic. The other is my dentist, who ALSO makes his own guns.....hmmmmmm....kind of like a guy from Hawaii....who has been spearfishing here since about 1955. He's 69.
Anyway, as you can see, they will shoot a lot of different fish. Arthur has some Taiwanese friends here who have a great recipe for stingray.
Andre was really stoked because he got 3 nice snappers. Arthur got 2 and also a couple trunkfish. They have the exoskeleton and really nice meat inside.
These guys really know the reef and took me to one of their secret snapper holes....but wouldn't let me punch it into my GPS. hah. Andre told Arthur, "don't let him do it, he and Jorge will come and clean the place out". But I did get a vector on the island just inside and the mountains in the background.
Andres son, Denis, 18 years old, got a nice barracuda and a yellow jack. We also got a couple nice black groupers. That's all the fish they could hold for the picture as we were coming home just before sunset. Nice day.
Going out tomorrow or Friday for some Christmas fish.

I won't go there. I kid them all the time about them not showing me secret spots. Respect.

Here on the barrier reef the fish concentrations are mostly near the cuts. The current goes in and out enriching the local food chain, and it gives the snapper schools places to go in and hide at night. This cut is a really narrow and shallow. They wait until late afternoon and the dogs start coming in to "roost" in holes, I guess to hide from sharks at night. That's how they usually hunt.
I shot a small cero and while I was taking it off the spear, 50 dogs were all around me just checking me out. As soon as I got loaded again, they disappeared into the not so clear water. They snuck right past me and Du Quesnay met them right at the cut entrance in about 8 feet of water. He was stoked.
Jorge and I normally go out to the dropoffs in more midday. We find the snappers there but you have to dive to 40-70 feet to get them.

Quote from LunkerBuster

whoa..dogs in 8 ft of water :@ i might have to find this spot...long kayak paddle from me though

looks like a great diving day

I've been wondering about this.
Do all schools of dog snappers do this same behavior? It seems they're coming in to hide. But why? There must be lots of holes out on the deeper walls too. I've seen them.

Went out with the "legends" again yesterday. Looks like this is going to become a regular thing.
My regular buddy is likely moving to Viet Nam to do a cobia project there. But this could be a good thing. I can do a Hawaii, Philippines, Viet Nam spearing trip next year. I hope.

Anyway, we tried looking for some new spots on the reef since it was a bit rough...and late...these guys don't get up until the crack of noon.....to cross to Turneffe. Found another nice deep cut that has potential. Saw some nice grouper, yellow jacks and a few snappers. We didn't stay long though because the old farts wanted to go back to their special place before it got too late. But the tide was really low so we had to approach it from outside the reef. No worries because the local fishermen have sticks lined up so it's marked pretty well.
As we're coming within a mile or so of the place, they said, "What does your GPS say? How close are we"?
I told them I didn't mark it last time. They start giving me a hard time....kidding....like now we can't find it. hah.
But it was a quiet day. We saw the snapper school but they were small so I didn't shoot any. Got one nice jack and a cero.
"Doc", the dentist, shot about 5 trunk fish. I would never have thought of shooting them but he gave me one last year and man, they're really good.
sorry, no pics this week. Next week.