SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
My fiance's first cousin got married in Pensacola last weekend, and since I played nice, theawesomefish and I treated ourselves to a shore dive on Sunday morning. Since FL fishing laws are so incredibly jacked up when it comes to spearfishing off the beaches, we headed to the friendlier waters of Alabama. Friday and Saturday had rougher surf, but it layed down by Sunday, waters were turquoise, but slightly milky it seemed.
Onsite, we geared up and hit the water, making our way past the small breakers and experienced only a little bit of surge. The first 5-6' of depth was quite nice at 75F and about 10' of visibility. Under that, we hit a nasty particulate layer of slightly cooler water(74F) with 2-5' visibility. Unfortunately, the wreck we were diving sat within that nasty particulate layer. Theawesomefish had never been to this location, nor has she ever been spearfishing, so it was all around a new experience for her. While the visibility kept her from getting familiar with the wreckage, she atleast got a taste for spearfishing! In our short 30 minute dive, she took 3 sheepshead using a 36" garage sale gun, all of which were a good size. I shot 2 sheepshead and 2 flounder with a polespear, but lost one of the sheepshead due to not having a stringer and losing it while attempting to "string" it to my dive flag line. I was monkey diving, which didn't really affect my fishing much, but it left me without my trusty stringer and fish-killin-knife. The visibility kept us from sight-seeing much. The wreck is covered in fish though. Sheepshead are thick, but you could also already find flounder and a couple mangrove snapper. Spades and butterfly fish were also present as were southern rays. Would have been an excellent dive if only the visibility permitted some lookin around.
Anyway, we came, we conquered, then we went way the hell back to Tallahassee.
Onsite, we geared up and hit the water, making our way past the small breakers and experienced only a little bit of surge. The first 5-6' of depth was quite nice at 75F and about 10' of visibility. Under that, we hit a nasty particulate layer of slightly cooler water(74F) with 2-5' visibility. Unfortunately, the wreck we were diving sat within that nasty particulate layer. Theawesomefish had never been to this location, nor has she ever been spearfishing, so it was all around a new experience for her. While the visibility kept her from getting familiar with the wreckage, she atleast got a taste for spearfishing! In our short 30 minute dive, she took 3 sheepshead using a 36" garage sale gun, all of which were a good size. I shot 2 sheepshead and 2 flounder with a polespear, but lost one of the sheepshead due to not having a stringer and losing it while attempting to "string" it to my dive flag line. I was monkey diving, which didn't really affect my fishing much, but it left me without my trusty stringer and fish-killin-knife. The visibility kept us from sight-seeing much. The wreck is covered in fish though. Sheepshead are thick, but you could also already find flounder and a couple mangrove snapper. Spades and butterfly fish were also present as were southern rays. Would have been an excellent dive if only the visibility permitted some lookin around.
Anyway, we came, we conquered, then we went way the hell back to Tallahassee.