Greetings from Mexico

Hello all, a little about myself... I've been an avid spearo since 2000 and have been fortunate to spear in Hawaii, Japan, East Coast US, and Mexico. Five years ago I retired to my house in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, after 25 years in the US Marine Corps. I spend most days helping out a buddy who is a commercial spearfisherman, so weather-depending, I'm in the water 30-40 hours per week. Luckily for my buddy, I "work" for free. We freedive from a 25' panga and range out to about 35 miles from the island. He sells most fish through the fisherman's cooperative that he belongs to and we primarily focus on groupers, snappers, yellow jack, amberjack, cobia, mackerel, African pompano, wahoo, and triggerfish. At times, we'll focus on barracuda, permit, and horse-eye jack; those are not sold through the co-op. Most days average more than 200 lbs, with good days reaching 800 lbs. We normally hunt in 65-100' waters, and vis is usually exceptional. Needless to say, I feel quite lucky that I ended up in this situation; sometimes even a blind squirrel...

If anyone is coming to the Mayan Riviera area and would like some information, please don't hesitate to ask and I'll help out where I can. I prefer personal e-mail and my address is magnum_166@yahoo.com. Cheers!

Thanks all. We use Rob Allen twin band, closed-muzzle guns. I have a 140, my buddy has a 130.

We also use a breakaway system without a float. We tie a 7-8' dyneema leader onto the shaft, and then tie that to a 115' 5/32" nylon rope that is coiled to pay out line while tucked in your weight belt. You can really horse a big fish around with the thick nylon cord (as compared to a reel). You can also release the gun and let it float to the surface while you use two hands on the rope. It's a way to get fish quickly on the boat. I hadn't seen the setup before, but it works like a champ. Re-rigging the setup to get back in the water takes just a couple of minutes.

I also have a Wong Hybrid w/reel and 100cm Aimrite I use on the reef behind my house. And a GraciaSub teak gun w/three bands and fully-enclosed track although I haven't found a case to use it in quite a while...

I will try to put some photos together tonight. Heading out on the water soon...

If you are serious, I can talk to my buddy. He also does charters, but pretty selectively. If you're after something specific, it would help to know. Our waters here have produced many world records and he has been involved with many of them. The IUSA records website is a little vague on location - for good reason! But I would say that most records located at Mexican Caribbean or Yucatan Peninsula or something similar were taken in our waters. Let me know... Cancun is a short flight from FL, and the island is just eight miles of the coast.

Marco, I put a complete description with pics in the thread on a boat running over a float line. I thought it might be something other spearos would want to incorporate.