Broward Beach Conditions

at Meade St today
begin at 830am-----------end at 630pm
wind calm------from N at 15mp
current from S to North 2mph---no current
viz 50f in 60fsw ---------25f in 25fsw
seas flat------------------less than 2f now
water temp 77F
air temp. 77F cloudless ---90F 10% clouds

sdeisen, and I on the Meade ST 3rd reef today
sdeisen got fish and I got 5 hogs, 3 dogs, 3 porgies and 2 muttons

"epic"--thats the perfect word for ONE of my doubles yesterday.

1. While on the surface I saw a nice hog on the bottom feeding so I did a short breath up and dropped silently to 10f from him. I was totaly focused on that hog feeding til I saw ANOTHER nice hog feeding an headed directly for the first hog. I had just enough time to think "oh shit" and the 2 hogs crossed and I squeezed the trigger. I couldnt believe that I had two hogs spinning on my spear. I immediatly dropped my gun and sprinted for the hogs. I grabbed my spear point and headed up in disbelief. Sdeisen had just paddled up and I yelled and yelled for him to come closer to see my double.:thumbsup2:
Normally I just unspear my fish an drop it in the yak and start hunting again, but this time I jumped into the yak and we both admired the double on my spear :toast2:

2. So later I'm swimming along on the surface and see a hog on the bottom. As I watch I see not one but 4 other hogs below me. Visions of another hog double flash in my feeble mind.
This time I do a real breath up and do another " silent death from above" drop. No double possibilities this time, so I pick the biggest closest hog an squeeze off another spear. The hit is good and I start a slow quiet fin back up so as not to scare off the other hogs. I just about reach the surface when my speared hog somehow wiggles off the spear and flutters almost dead to the bottom. I breath up, reload my ETPG and drop again. My shot hog is laying just next to a hole flat on his side but still breathing. Perfect for a pole spear shot but not a good shot for a 120 enclosed tract gun straight into the reef. So changed my drop angle and landed 5 feet away from the hop and layed my gun on the reef. I silently crawled up to the hog and grabbed him with both hands. He wiggled and twisted but I got my fingers in his throat and as soon as I looked up I saw ANOTHEr nice hog 10feet away watching. I slowly reached back and got my gun, slide it up into position with one hand, lined up and squeezed off another spear. The hit was perfect and I AGAIN finned to the surface with 2 nice hogs.:thumbsup2:

3. So now I'm limited out on hogs, no one around left to share with:rolleyes1:, so I start hunting mid water, even though I'm only in 40fsw.
I deploy my flasher and FAD and seconds later I see a shadow out in the haze:confused1:
I stop breathing and finning an lay motionless in hopes that the "shadow" mistakes me for a floating barrel or tree trunk. The shadow grows and grows. Now I can see black and white and movement. I slowly reach down and take the drag off the reel cause WHATEVER is coming in is big an gonna take ALOT of reel line.
Strange shadow, not shark like or big fish like behavior either and seconds later I realize the "shadow" is a 7ft Manta ray. Last summer we shot 2 cobia off a manta like this so I repeated what I did last summer and slowly held out my knife towards the manta. The sun glissened off the knife blade and in came the manta to check out what the shinny new thing was. As the manta came in I started a silent drop to get down to below his level. Last year when I did this exact same manouver there were 3 nice cobia UNDER that manta and one ended up in my "dirty bathtub".:thumbsup2:
But this manta was alone and I reached up and touched his belly as he flew over top of me. :cool2:
Big mantas are one of the most beautiful animals in the sea to me.