Reefchief's oceanic adventures

    That's a valentine's present to us all. Can't wait to see your pics with this one.

    Got out today with my Dad, Hardline, and LunkerBuster, off of hollywood. With yesterdays rain and the weird forecast I wasnt sure how today was gonna turn out. But it ended up being a really nice day. A great time was had by all minus Judah's expensive sunglasses being claimed by the sea in a series of unfortunate events.


    We started out on the second reef in hollywood. Tried to anchor on some spots but the current was ripping too hard. My dad couldn't find his good mask so he captained the boat on the drift.


    Early on Judah shot a trigger and Frank shot a hog. Then I found a nice little lobster hole and worked it with Judah for a while. We pulled a few barely shorts and then concentrated on one big boy who didnt want to play nice. We spent a while chasing him back and forth under a series of ledges and trying to snare him until Judah got him in a nice spot I could see him from the side and get the snare in.


    We decided to hit one more spot a little north and got towed up. As soon as I dropped off the rope I dove down to get one kickless dive in and ran into a really nice hog. Then A crazy west wind picked up to the point that the waves were going out and the sea was reverse 2 foot whitecaps. So we called it a day. Sometime during the whitecap melee my dad took a wave that knocked a bunch of stuff off the center console and when it happened Judah's costa's must have flew away. :(


    Frank took all these pics. 2 with my new gopro 3 black




    Costas aren't meant for me either Judah. I was working on my boat and laid them down.....forgot where until I stepped into the boat and heard a "CRUNCH..." ooops.


    Sounds like you guys had a great day. One day I'll make it up there and bum a ride out with you. Maybe next year Blue Wild.

    Cool report, nice hog Reefchief. Davy Jones has claimed a pair of my Costa's as well, I feel your pain.:(

    Thanks guys,


    Hank if you ever make it to Florida we will definitely show you a good time.


    Based on how many other peoples costa's end up prematurely dead it appears costa has stumbled on a genius business plan.


    Judah, I was looking through the GoPro videos and it reminded me of the stone/Scorpion fish I didnt mention. Remember when you came up from sticking your head in the lobster hole and said "wow I just grabbed that stonefish and nothing happened" Then I dove down and chased the fatass away and had to poke it about 15 times? Im glad you didnt get stung by that thing.


    I threw together a few clips from Saturday to see what the GoPro3 Black can do. So far I am pretty blown away by its quality. The incredible picture quality combined with using Cineform (the gopro editing software) to adjust the levels makes for some really nice video. Im giddy over my ability to remove some of the overbearing blue tinge from my videos and get it closer to reality.


    Saturday Hog and bugs in Hollywood - Testing GoPro 3 Black Edition - YouTube


    I also forgot to mention. My dad was absolutely giddy over his new sombra speardiver suit. I was bummed because mask problems prevented him from really diving. But the suit fit perfectly and coming from a 5/3/7 scuba suit he was astounded by its watertightness and flexibility. He also couldn't believe he could jump in 70* water and not even notice.

    Quote from tufual

    did you just lasso a bug ? cool 8)


    Yep here in FL they have to be a certain size so you need to catch them with your hands, a net, or a lasso. And then measure the carapace with a gauge. I prefer to use a net but the snare (lasso) works well for the deep holes and skittish bugs around here.


    We have it harder then the guys who can shoot them. But much easier then the guys from Cali who can only hand grab.

    That is some interesting tile work at the end of the video under the hog you shot. What are those interlaced concrete blocks used for?

    Quote from Dan

    Cool vid. But I'm not sure about the color adjustment you did, everything looks too green. To eliminate the blue tone from Gopro hero3 footage you need a red filter Snap On Filters For GoPro HERO3




    http://spearfishing.store/223-966-thickbox/snap-on-hero3.jpg


    I do need the red filter and that will really make them look right. But the color correction did a better job then it looks like in parts of this video. Part of the problem with these clips is I started recording them late. So the first few seconds of the video the white balance and contrast and stuff is out of whack till the GoPro adjusts. On the way down everything is dark green. But You'll notice in the hole and on the way up the reef and water looks pretty good. I didnt notice until I uploaded it since I was balancing the clips using the middle of the dive. The scoprionfish shot is also very green all the way through. Maybe I will try to fix them even more...


    Also I really tweaked the tint and color to see how far I could take it here. But the more useful and important settings I found available in CineStudio were exposure/contrast/sharpness etc.

    Makes sense that they taste good. Lionfish and other scorpion fishes are of the genus Scorpanidae.
    Stone fish look like a pretty close relative. But man, you need a trained eye to find one. I lived and dived the Philippines for a few years and tried to find some. Hard...even the scorpion fish look just like rocks. Stonefish are even better camouflaged.

    Edited once, last by hank ().

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