Reefchief's oceanic adventures

I got out on the 4th of July. Just me and my dad. Went dolphin fishing early in the AM but without an east wind for a week there wasn't too much action. Boat traffic was surprisingly light all day for it being a national drunk boating holiday and it was flat with decent viz (30-40ft). Hopped in on the second reef south of hollywood with my rash guard and found a really cold thermocline, put on my 3mil and then hit a few spots and ended up with a nice red grouper and a hog after a few hours of work. Missed a few nice mangroves that wouldn't let me close enough. My breath hold was disappointing compared with when I was diving weekly, but it worked.

It was definitely amazing to be back in the water again. Ive been too busy to dive for too long. Will be heading to the keys for mini season, but hopefully going to get a few more broward dives in before then to get myself ready.

Gonna upload some pictures when I get them.

I forgot to mention, I also saw a nice sized bull cruise by the reef I was on a few minutes after I shot the hog. Also saw a huge hammerhead from the bow of the boat 12mi out after we ran up on a school of bait looking for mahi.

Heres some low quality pics from my phone.

Went out Monday. Mostly to do some dolphin fishing. But we also hit the reef south of Port Everglades for a bit. The morning started out beautiful but rainy. But it looked like it would burn off and we were right.

Trolled around without much success most of the morning until we finally spotted a small verticle log in about 450ft of water. Pulled up and tossed some baits at it. Got 3 on hook & line but then they stopped biting. So I slipped in with my gun and took two more. After two awesome spine shots on Mahi I missed a wahoo that cruised by because I loaded my gun in a hurry and tangled the bands like a dummy :frustrated2: And by the time I fixed it he was gone.

After that we went in to the second reef south of Port Everglades around noon. The water was dark green and looked like zero viz soup. But I was dying to do some more diving so I geared back up and got in. Even from the surface I couldn't see a damn thing. I took a breath and dropped down to find that past the first 10 feet of sandy pea soup water was a clearer and warmer thermocline with about 30 feet of viz.

I had dropped right over some good structure and immediately spotted a really nice mangrove and got a good headshot on him. Then went right back to the boat to everyones surpise (I dont think ive ever shot a fish first dive of the day not to mention a 20 inch mangrove). Over the next hour I got a nice cero, and two more mangroves.

Ive been moving for almost an entire month, so it was really great to be out on the water again. And Ive been without internet for a month so its really great to finally be able to share and read reports and see pics of fish.

I also got some cool video I will post soon hopefully if I can find some time to put a few shots into video.

Thanks guys!
:thumbsup2:

The ulusub rash guard is great and probably the most vital piece of summer diving equipment I have. Being a ginger any piece of skin exposed to the sun for more then an hour fries. So its really great to be able to stay covered 100% and dive all day. But I'm with you, I can't wait for the speardiver version.

As promised I slapped together some clips from monday for your vicarious speardiving pleasure. Apologies for the lackluster camera work and editing. Also ignore the michael jackson style, I brought two right gloves. :laughing:

Labor Day - Blue Water / Green Water Diving. - YouTube

Thanks Yep it sure is the carbon 120. The nice shooting probably has a lot to do with it being such a killer gun :good: