photos courtesy of Bloody Decks Outdoors click for BD Outdoors Story

I’ve been telling you to click on the Punta Mita Expeditions banner to the right…

If you listened then likely you have been keeping your mouth shut and enjoying trips filled with 200+lb Yellowfin, Wahoo, Sailfish and Marlin not to mention the best Pargo diving in Central America all on the same day.

If you haven’t been, then you are missing out on the chance for huuuuuuge Yellowfin Tuna, like this 430 lb (potential World Record) one taken just two days ago there.

You can go with another charter, fisherman, whatever but there is no substitution for the Punta Mita program which Sebastian Melani has put together.  Fisherman have the ability to cover a lot of ground and depths and this doesn’t necessarily transfer to being able to put divers on the right spot consistently and having dove this area for many years and trained his Captains to set you up for the drifts, chum, handle the gear, and take care of you from the time you land to the last taco and cerveza.

I can’t promise you are going to see a 400lb Yellowfin Tuna, but I can assure you there is no where in the world that compares for delivering monsters and no better place to find them.

Book your trip today and get on it while it is going off!

CK

Note:

To help convince your wife, girlfriend, or pretentious diva dive partner to go down there, here is how to do it right, in style but affordable while still crushing the fish.

Punta Mita is the northern point of land closest to the fishing/diving spots. You fly in to Puerta Vallarta and stay in Punta Mita which is a quiet fishing town turned high end resort, golf, sportfishing, surfing destination.

Through PM Expeditions we stayed last time here:  St. Regis Punta Mita which was phenomenal.  They booked everything for us and the price was nearly half the advertised I could find anywhere else on the internet and the accommodations were unreal. Check it out.

Checking out the surf from our balcony. I surfed every day in an empty line up all to myself just steps from the bedroom

Not your typical spearfishing crash pad but after fighting big Yellowfins all day it was nice to come back to this

Morning wave waiting for the boat to pick me up out front...

Morning Dolphin Mahi Mahi

So it all began with a plan to head up to Portland, Dorset with my dive buddy, James Keith from Cornwall. We were loaded like springs for the rescheduled run of the 2011 LIC Pairs Dive.
That was until we heard about the event being called off, again, due to the wild weather wonder of the British summer!
After a few calls and advice from Dorset local Ben Garner, we cracked on!
Late saturday afternoon we pushed off from the Castletown slipway to see if the Crystal Vis crew and Parker brothers had left any fish for us!
Well suffice to say it certainly was not Crystal! Saturdays ocean antics closed with a green murk cocktail, capped with 30 knot westerly aeration!
Saturdays one consolation being two sublimely large lamb shish kebabs from one of Weymouth’s finest stag and hen eateries!

Sunday dawned with the general melas in the Castletown car park and slipway of a few BSAC clubs getting ready for their pout and bib viewing trips.
James and I were joined by another spearo buddy, Scott, and we suited up and got the kit down onto the gravel as fortunately the Rib was already afloat.
From here it could have gone either way as I battled to start the motor and keep it idling. Add to this, I was getting nailed by little shocks of electric current coming through the throttle control!
I managed to load the guys up and we shot off across a 35 knot whipped Portland Harbour. We had hopes for at least somewhere to dive.
As we motored over HMS Hood we noticed the swell and Balaclava Bay was even murkier than the previous evening, so it was either work the east side of Portland or go left to the waters outside the harbour. We went left.
We chose a spot and anchored up.
James jumped in first and promptly reported terrible vis and quote, “it’s almost unfishable…”. Then Scott joined him and began to have his own scout down current from the boat.
I sat on the boat having got ready and feeling kind of gutted about the apparent conditions, put the bung back on the speartip, sat down and had a drink! I seriously at this point almost decided to just leave the gun onboard and just go and have some exploratory deep dives to see if I could get under the murk. Must have been Neptunes voice I heard in my mind say “always take the gun”….in I jumped.

I began the breathe up for my first dive, just off the boat on the uptide of the two already in.
I folded and began my descent inverted as you have all done many a time. I must have been 4-6m down, when I first saw the first fast mover barely through the 2m murk…now it’s sounds a bit crazy but I immediately thought, “bloody hell, that’s a big mullet!!!, whoa!?!, what?!?!, huge pollack?!?!?, NO! is it one of those Amberjacks?!?!?, by which time it was turning hard and fast after an arc from right to left, F#%K!!!!! It’s a TUNA!!!! There’s TWO!!!! I was arching back up and the RA 7mm tip in my 90 came straight up and onto the charge line of the huge head of a storming lead Tuna . Bang! The spear exploded at almost point blank range into the top of the gill plate, down through the bulk, exiting the left flank of the belly. Time stopped momentarily there for me. I just stared at it in utter shock believing I had stoned it. The tuna came to life and I came back into the gravity of the what it was doing in the broken vis. It went ballistic doing multiple wraps of spear line, gun and float line round and round my legs! I fought frantically out of the tangle and away from the crazed circles this tuna was doing. If I pulled, the fish pulled harder and down! I was getting small breaths when I could surface and so after what seemed an eternity of tugging and finning, I was slowly heading towards the boat. James by now was sat on one of the sponsons and I managed to shout…”I have shot a effin TUNA!!!”
I honestly got the most nonchalant glance and nod of Yeah right from James. I moved towards the boat and managed to hand up a section of float line to James who suddenly had very big eyes while feeling the pull of this fish but not being able to see it! I grabbed his gun, battling to calm myself for a dive and and possibly put a second shot in. I dived, aimed and missed, while the tuna continued it’s spirals now with added tangle!
The tuna had begun to slow and keep to a certain depth on the tension of the float line. I decided it was time to bring this magnificent fish up and into the boat. I dived down and grabbed the spear and fish securely, finned up and brought him right up to James who have the leverage to heave it up over the sponson and into the back of the boat! YES! Could I relax? No!
Utter shock across the faces of us all. The other two naturally jumped back in and I just sat myself down next to MY TUNA!
Besides an almost comical and literally shocking (as in jolts!), rubber jacket hand wrapped throttle arm, we beached onto the Castletown gravel.
The faces from the now returned scuba boats was a sight.
Amazing experience and perhaps I’m rambling on now but this tuna deserves it!
Thanks to James, Scott and Titus for the support yesterday. Truly stoked!

Regards to all.
Brett

Dry land has never looked so sweet

In Roberto’s words:
“3 guys went fishing, shallow dives, 8 miles out, in a island in the south of Puerto Rico, part of the island is now a natural reserve, they were on a side you can spearfish.
They went late, just to make a few dives and take some fish to eat, one of the guys got hit in the nose by his speargun butt, and went to his float, lot of blood made him sick, and unable to swim for a while, when he realiced he was getting far, he tried to swim back, mask was lost, and strong currents and blood did not allow him to made the “short swim”, by the time he was feeling better to swim, it was too late, he was out of sight and into deep blue waters, he spend to nights offshore, everytime he fell seep, waves and sea water inside his mouth would wake him up,he had been praying at first, then fighting with God, telling him, ” you can split the red sea, please give me a chance to swim to shore,”, when he was ready to let go, he remembered saying, ” Ok, I will accept your will”, last thing he remember was Coast Guard chopper on top of him, rescue diver suiting up to jump to him, They called a boat and he was taken to shore by the Marine Police, miles from shore, and 15+ miles from were the current took him, he is fine in emergency room at hospital, were he was still shivering strongly due to hypothermia, alive and all the loved ones very happy.
We are xtremely happy with the US Coast Guard, they never gave up, not even at night, FURA (marine Police in PR) also was of great help, may guys went on their own boats looking for him, 3 days in the water, 2 full nights, a mirale he is alive.
Roberto”

Thanks for the report Roberto and to all you divers out there remember this is why you dive with buddies and take care of each other. That the Coast Guard and his friends never gave up hope is huge and I hope that we all will do the same if the day ever came.
Best to you Christopher on a speedy recovery.

From Brandon Wahlers
“For the past 3 years Ive been putting a lot of effort and research into putting a trip together to this spot, and this year I was able to finally set it all up and get out to these few spots where I have heard of monster tuna being taken.
I managed to get out there twice before, and both trips were good, with fish up to 250lbs, but no chances at anything in the 300lb range.
This trip it was just Justin Allen and I on the panga diving, so I was stoked to have half the pressure on the fish as we had on the last two trips.
As soon as we made it out to the spot late that afternoon, we could see action all around: birds diving, bait popping, and nice tunas jumping. We tried dropping a marker buoy, but there was so much current that even with plenty of line we couldn’t get the marker to hold. Scrapping that Idea I quickly made the decision to start our drift about a mile up current of the spot, just in front of where the birds were working.
On my first dive to 50ft, I found the vis to be only about 15-20 ft, but I was immediately schooled by tuna from 80-200lbs that followed me up to the surface. The next dive I made was a to 60, and I saw some bigger fish in the 200lb range. Things were looking good, and I knew we had a chance for a monster.
Justin was still getting his rig ready in the boat and I told him what I saw. Him and the Pangero both hinted that I shoot one quickly so we would at least have some fish to cook on the grill that night since we were camping.
The next dive I saw mostly 80-100lb fish, and I lined up on one 5ft away, ready to get a brainshot. I ended up missing the brain by less than and inch, but fought him up to the surface quickly and clipped the buoy off to my shooting line. I went down to brain the fish, and saw my slip tip toggled perfectly. Struggling and spinning around a few times trying to dispatch the fish with my knife, the slip tip somehow pulled back out and stabbed me in the palm, opening up a fairly deep wound.

I got back in the boat completely confused and in pain, telling Justin I was done diving for the day, and he should take my big gun in and look for a monster. After his first dive he yelled that he was seeing big fish everywhere. I checked the sounder and it was lit up with tuna from 30ft all the way to 150. With my hand bleeding like crazy and nothing on the panga to fix it, I grabbed Justins 140 euro gun and got in the water. I made 3 dives in a row getting schooled by 80-200 lb tuna each time, with some fish coming within 3 ft of my face. This was as wide open as I’d ever seen tuna while diving.
The next dive, I was again schooled by fish in the 150lb range. I sank down to 67ft trying to see if there were bigger fish deeper, when looking up I saw a super long bottom sickle fin behind 5 fish in front of me. That being the sign of a monster, I had to almost push the 150 lb tunas in front of me out of the way, and I finally got a full view of this MONSTER tuna. Its sickle fins almost made it back to its tail, and it was an incredibly tall and fat fish, not swimming how the other fish were at all, rather it was waddling. As soon as it saw me, it started to move off pretty quickly, so I lined up and shot it just as it was going out of visibility from about 14ft away.
The fish took off like a freight train and towed me over 3 miles in over an hour. I was using Justin’s rig with 50ft of hard floatline and 50ft of bungee, and the clip on his buoy was not holding the bungee very well. For the life of me I couldn’t get the fish above 80ft, so all my dives trying to second shoot the fish were to at least that depth. The first 4 times I tried to get a second shot the fish would see me from 10ft away just as I was about to shoot and take off for another 5 minutes. I finally got a second shaft into the fish and it started to bleed a lot, really slowing him down. Soon enough I had the buoy clipped off at the shooting line and took my trusty Riffe 130 Euro down to shoot him in the brain.

Only once I got my hands in this fishes gills did I realize that he was WAY over 300lbs, an absolute toad!!
It took 3 of us to get him in the boat, and he ended up 77inches long, with a 61 inch girth.
Using the girth squared X length, divided by 800 formula the fish came out to 358lbs, truly the fish of a lifetime! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find a certified scale within 100 miles to weigh him on, but Im still on cloud 9 after shooting this monster!!”

For more on Brandon Wahlers check out Team Riffe at: http://www.speargun.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&Itemid=37

World Record White SeaBass on 20 lb line

As everyone that hunts White Seabass already knows, the big girls show up first and this year it looks like its no different. Each year the fish have been getting bigger and despite some complaints at the strict regulations and MPA’s over the past couple years it has been great for the fishery and the size of the fish reflect that.
This stud was 76.4 lbs which is a benchmark fish and I’m hoping in the coming months that I’ll see some Spearo’s with fish of similar size or bigger. Judging by Ernst current WR and reports that divers have seen some in the 90-100# class in recent years… the record will be broken again soon.
Most of you will dismiss this because it is fishing but you need to read between the lines here and become a better spearfisherman by noticing the key decision these guys made that let to catching the fish of a lifetime.
Think outside the box, the plan can always change.
It never hurts to investigate activity that you see on the surface and can lead to some of the best diving of your life. Always be flexible in your plans and be ready for anything.
Have any of you found big White SeaBass in open water before on bait schools?

Hogfish Bahamas Pole Spearing

The girls enjoying themselves as much as possible, always

As you’re flipping through pictures with friends showing them your last trip, I guarantee they stop you every time you pass one with a girl in a bathing suit on the boat.   That our sport has a knack for convincing good looking girls to come join us for a day on the water, in the sun, and enjoying the ocean is no secret but often overlooked is the number of talented Spearfisherman, that are women. I hate to use the word Spearfisherwoman as these women have made their mark on the ocean without the bravado and rough touch that so many of us share when slugging it out below the surface with our adversaries.

What they lack in strength, the women that dive more than make up for in finesse and tact and tend to be more patient and disarming both on land and in the ocean so that not only fish but also googled eyed men fall prey to their allure.

From Russia to Australia, Brazil to Florida and everywhere in between, whether it be in a wetsuit or bikini they will always turn heads and make us wish we were on the same boat with them.

Over the life of Spearblog we will build a list of the most sought after women in the diving world.  Some will be daughters, sisters, wives and mothers and remember you aren’t the only one who wants to have them on your boat, so play nice and remember these girls have guns and know how to use them.

We will start it off with Maureen,  who has made more enviable catches and looked better doing it than any guy you’ve ever had on the boat.

you can thank me later…

Warsaw Grouper East Coast Florida

1. (Cameron) How did you get into Spearfishing?

(Maureen) I  became a fellow Speara with the inspiration of my mother, Charlene.  It’s our lifestyle Iguess. I think I was getting tired of her killing bigger fish than me.  Even as a little girl I recall flipping through her dive pictures.   I think I was hooked on dry land. And of course watching all the guys on the boats bringing up fish is a drive on it’s own!

Like Mother Like Daughter. Charlene and Maureen setting the bar high

2.  Whats your favorite place to dive?

My all time favorite place to dive would be the Bahamas.  Bikini and a Hawaiian sling, leave the tanks and excess at home.  Dawn till dusk .Gorgeous crystal clear water and plentiful nice fish.  And of coarse conch, the weakness to my heart.  Walkers Cay is the bomb.

Also the deep ledge in Jupiter. Around 115 on top and around 130 on the floor. You never know what you are going to see such as the schools of king fish, beautiful bait balls, groups of seasonally spawning Goliaths congregating at the hole in the wall, lots hefty bull sharks that carry Cobia, and your normal jacks, hogs, snapper and grouper.

3. What is it about spearfishing that keeps you coming back?  Always jonesing to  kill bigger fish.  You never know what may be lurking down the ledge.  It’s a sick addiction. I don’t want to miss out!

4. Any suggestions for a girl interested in getting into it?

Spearguns are hot, every girl should own one. Plus we usually breath less air and can stay down longer with tanks. Invest in nothing bigger than 100 steel tanks cause you will kill your back carrying them.  You have only seen half the world if you only explore the top layer.

5. After your Warsaw Grouper this year how many marriage proposals did you get from jealous Spearfisherman?

haha.. not enough! (hint this means try harder guys, she is still out shooting you)

6.  Crew?  (who you go out with the most or enjoy going out with).

My bad ass mother, Charlene, Emerald Charters with Captain Tony.

7. Gear that no woman can live without on a boat?

I feel naked in the water without a speargun in hand, however ,I couldn’t live without the hair brush, scrunchies and a hoodie.  Without, I’d have dreadlocks.  I have seen some chicks with horror stories after diving and having to cut a lot of it off. No bueno.

8. Bathing suit or… under your Wetsuit?

Yes, I live in bikinis. Some girls have a shoe fetish, while i a bikini in every color and print.

9.  Dream dive?  If you could dive anywhere in the world where would you go and what do you want to hunt?  I would and WILL eventually get more into the pelagic aspect of spearing. I could literally kill for one of those monster tuna. In my dreams right? I have seen a couple wahoo, but never managed to get close enough.  I would love to go anywhere that has less diver traffic as well.

10.  Best day on the water? One off my all time favorites was with a bunch of whalesharks in Isla Mujeres Mexico.  We got to hold on to there dorsal fins and take a ride pretty wicked!

11. Tell us a bit about your business plan and how you worked your way into one of the most envious careers in our sport.  On the water every day, in a bathing suit, having fun with the girls and getting paid to cruise the world and dive on some of the nicest yachts in the world?

Haha trust me work is work..  Can’t say it is as attractive as that but the job definitely has its perks!… I help deliver boats up and down the coast and take trips as a mate. I also get into the nitty gritty aspect of maintaining and detailing them as well.

12. And the question everyone is wondering, who is the luckiest SpearfisherMAN in the world? Haha, I’m still Single!  ; )

Boat drinks

Cobia

Hogfish

Best day on the water ever? Everyday you have these two on board

Who are the women you have been diving with your whole life?   It’s time women had their place on Spearblog and in the world of Spearfishing.    If you want to see more, send your pics ladies to blueh2oboy@yahoo.com.  Guys, I know you have wives, girlfriends, daughters and friends who look better in a bathing suit than you and have tried spearfishing, we need their representation here to inspire the next generation of women divers and to brighten the future of our sport.

Thanks for the interview Maureen, I know we will be seeing more of you in the water and in the Magazines.  Check out Spearing Magazine this month for more pics of Maureen and great articles on Spearfishing around the world.

Check out the video from this week in the Bluewater off Florida

Big King Mackerel and a well placed shot in Bluewater

Not heeding my own advice in “Slow Summer Spearing Solutions”, we headed out early this week and hit a few of our favorite “secret” spots on the East and West Coast of Florida. In both cases within a few minutes of arriving at the spots another boat was on it and pushy as could be to anchor right on top of our heads. In the morning everyone is so fired up to get right on their GPS numbers and all manners seem to go out the window even though you still have 10 more hours of dive/fishable time.
The spots in the morning produced a few good fish but things didn’t really start to turn on until the afternoon.
From 2 miles out we could see the flotilla of boats and as we motored in slowly one and then two left leaving us with the wreck all to ourselves. Despite having been dove countless times during the day and one of the last boats leaving full of Scuba Spearfisherman, we had high hopes for a shark filled adventure and big Gag Groupers.
Anchor down at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and the sea was like a lake. On each of our first dives we were greeted by swarms of Groupers both Gag and Black as well as Big Dusky and Hammerhead sharks. Because of the sharks GR had encountered the week before (upwards of 15 big pissed off Bulls, Dusky and Sandbar) he volunteered to cover the two of us while we made the first couple of dives and push off the toothy critters so we could land our fish.
Well the sharks must have been sleeping because on the first 4 dives we made we landed 4 groupers and didn’t lose a one. There were Permit and Mangrove Snappers on every dive as well and you would never have guessed a dozen boats had already hit the spot that day.

A few days and few hundred miles earlier in the week I had made another trip in search of pelagics wide on the East Coast of the US. With the Labor Day crowds we opted to go long and after covering more than 40 miles of ocean we came across a floating buoy that had a section of line hanging off of it. We quickly suited up and once in the clear water were surrounded by Dolphin (mahimahi, Dorado) from 1-15 lbs. With the school circling I watched the perimeter and down below for in the summertime and with a group of fish this size there was surely to be other predators in the area.

On countless occasions we have found schools of small dolphin and learned the hard way that it pays to be patient and wait for what might be eating the dolphin to come up instead of wasting a trigger pull on a 4 lb Peanut watching and waiting for the ever present Wahoo, Tuna or Marlin that was sure to be lurking in the distance.
For this reason it is always good to get in the water with a gun suited for shooting Wahoo when you are checking out flotsam, weedlines, or kelp paddies in warmer climates. When the wahoo do come they are usually just out of reach of your normal reef gun and the trend towards bigger more reliable equipment and bluewater set ups has allowed more divers to land good fish in the past few years.
The setups used this day were 50′ Riffe Bungey and 50′ Armor Spectra Float lines and single 33 liter buoys, 130 Riffe Euro, Wong Hybrid 60 and Horizontal Reel rigged with 200ft of Spectra line.

These same rigs with an added length of floatline or Bungey serve well for hunting the drop-offs and deep wrecks for pelagics all over the world when the fish are less than 100 lbs. (figure one 2 Atmosphere float per 140 lbs of fish you are hunting to be safe or 1 regular float per 75 lbs of fish)
Rig smart for bluewater fish.
Unlike reefs and wrecks in shallow water, there is unlimited room to run for Pelagic fish and in deep water a Tuna or Amberjack can run down and out of sight and never return. Once they get your buoy under water and have momentum and are heading down it is likely they won’t stop because the buoys will begin crushing and lose their buoyancy. (hence the reason for the 2 atm Riffe Floats)
The solution to this is using Bungey and stronger buoys. With bungey you have ample time to get a hand on your floats and the stretch of the bungey acts as a drag and slows the fish down reducing their forward(downward) force.
There is nothing like hunting in the bluewater but at the end of the day its nice to come in to the shallows and relish in seeing the bottom at only 75′. Get out there and enjoy the warmth of the summer and the cool of the evenings and sweat at the end of the day with a heavy cooler full of hard earned fillets of your bluewater fish.

GR and Ben with the days catch on the West Coast of Florida

Jill Riffe working the Cryptic Camo Bathing Suit from www.riffeapparel.com

Julie Riffe, Suited, Smiling and ready to slay

Cameron, Kelsey Albert, Jay Riffe, and Craig Clasen with big Calico Bass and huge California Halibut

Thanks to Yeti Coolers for keeping my first limit of White SeaBass happy in their badass coolers. www.yeticoolers.com

So thats what a White Sea Bass looks like! My fish from the first day. Thanks Jay for the pep talk!

Same old story.
Big fish, hot ladies and good times.
I really do enjoy my vacation!
We had the Riffe Team in California this past week with Jay Riffe presiding over the daily design and hunting Forum. The opportunity to have some of the best divers in the world together to dive and use all the gear and put our thoughts on paper and into the new equipment is invaluable.
It is amazing to hear each of our varied tastes and techniques from around the world from five of the most travelled and experienced guys and girls and have everyone wanting the exact same equipment for the job.
Hearing and seeing the future of spearfishing equipment and putting it to use is something that I could only have dreamed of when I was still shooting Blue Tang and Slippery Dicks in the Caribbean with a three prong. Knowing that the Riffe Equipment that goes on the shelves is exactly what we want and the thought and patience it takes to design it is all worth it in the end.
DJ Struntz flew in from Costa Rica to document the week and as usual captured the striking photos that he is so well known for. www.djstruntzphoto.com
Mark Healey took some time off surfing 30ft waves to break the Croaker Curse and shoot a 45lb White SeaBass and some big Calico Bass at over 100 feet. He’s got some sick videos of 50+ ft Waves on the internet if you haven’t seen them and has had more tiger shark encounters than anyone I’ve ever met. Check it out: http://www.surfline.com/video/webiso…rfishing_22430
Kelsey Albert showed us all up by turning herself into the Hali-ho and shooting the hell out of the Halibut and landing a PB and potential WR for Halibut. Watch out for this one she has the mindset and the skills to be a contender for National Champ in the coming years.
Craig Clasen was his normal humble self quietly finding the biggest Bass each day and smiling each time he climbed out of the water knowing they were bigger than the ones I had. Dammit!!!
Jay Riffe shared his knowledge of each spot he has gathered over years of experience and networking through hundreds of spearos on the West Coast to put us on the best spots each day. With his guidance he led me to my first, second and third White Sea Bass within a few hours of each other on our first cold calm morning last Sunday.
All the White SeaBass I shot were stoned with a 120 Euro rigged with a 9/32 shaft with a Hawaiian Flopper.
The rest of the ones were stoned as well by the other guys with either the same 120 Euro or a 130 Euro with a mini icepick tip.
Those are big powerful fish but with the right techniques and patience in the water we were able to take 12-15ft shots and roll each of the ones we saw.
The Calicos on Catalina are some of the smartest I’ve seen so we were psyched to get our biggest ones there.
Kelsey used her Pole spear to land a good one at Bird Rock which is historically one of the areas that has the smartest ones in California.
Thanks to Beach City Scuba and the Sun Diver and Joel Olenik for getting us on the water and letting us do our thing. Can’t wait to do it again!
Pics courtesy of Rebecca Walker (Riffe cousin) and Richard Holbrook.
DJ’s photos will be in the Mags in a few months
The Riffe Life continues…

Choose your partner... for diving wisely. Don't trust them with an open bottle of Petron in the boat at night though

White Sea Bass. Big, good eating, hard to find, dirty water loving fish.

Notice the same exact shot placement on each fish, I stoned the first one so I figured that must be a good spot to shoot them, its worked every time since and doesn't mess up the meat so I think I'm on to something!

Having a 5 ft fish on your belt in Great White Shark land isn't the wisest idea

Mark with the Flying fish of his life.

Calico Bass can make you feel like a total ass. They are the #1 choice for all of us to hunt there because they are so challenging and fun to pursue

Big Halibut and stud Calicos

The haul of Halibut. Most of which were slain by Kelsey Albert, that girl is a killer

Planning another trip the Bahamas and I have a few weeks to make all the preparations… except I’m on the other side of the world and when I get back I will have less than a few hours to pack the boat, my gear, girl, food, water, gas, etc etc etc for a week long trip.
So what have I been doing to get ready?
Sending a ton of emails and being a bit bossy apparently but it seems to be working.
The number one ingredient for a good trip is the crew you pick to go with you.
Most of us have a short list of people that we ask to go depending on where and when the diving will be. There are guys I call when I want to go international and try new things that are iffy, third world, off the beaten track, malaria ridden, and sometimes down right foolhardy.
Thanks to all the guys that indulge me and usually come up with some of the same ideas or even gnarlier. That is part of the fun is planning the trips and gathering information and talking about gear before we go.
Then there are the last minute guys. The ones that you know will drop everything the night before when the weather goes perfect and the conditions come together and be there waiting with plenty of ice, guns, beer, lunch and more gas money then they should be paying. They are good houseguests, they clean up after themselves and thats why they get invited back.
Obviously those are the ones that get invited back the most and I wish that I could say that I was one of those people all the time but I’m definitely not. I have pissed off more than one friend leaving early and not helping clean the boat enough or leaving my credit card in another state or messing up the house or shooting their fish. Sorry doesn’t do it so I hope to make up for it in the future!

So back the Bahamas…
I will get home, load the boat with my mental checklist that I say over and over in my head when I’m trying to concentrate or relax (works better than thinking of baseball actually)
Mask, snorkel, fins, booties, weightbelt, gloves, knife, floatline, gun (pole spear in this case), float
1. Naida Mask with Amber and a spare with a clear lens (low volume great vision and amber lens makes things stand out better in lower light and blue water hunting)
2. Stable snorkel for choppy water
3. Riffe Carbon and Fiberglass fins
4. Riffe booties
5. Rubber weightbelt with good stretch, 1 lb Adreno weights and black nylon pin type buckle
6. Riffe kevlar glove with extra pair
7. new (unnamed as of yet) knife we have been working on… don’t know if it will even be legal in the states its pretty badass though and exactly what I want…
8. Armor Spectra Floatline 50 and 100ft
9. Pole spears:
a. Three prong 8 ft hybrid
b. Riffe Slip tip rigged 9 ft Hybrid
c. Same as above but rigged for pelagics
d. Mr Miyagi Japanese pole spear 12 ft
e. three prong 6ft Lionfish killer

10. Riffe 2 atm float

Thats my basic list then I start adding on depending what time of year it is
11. Green cryptic Rash guard
12. Blue Cryptic two piece rash guard/jelly fish suit (don’t know if these are out yet)
13. 1.5mil Blue Cryptic full suit
14. 1mm Riffe Top with cocking pad
Thats a lot of gear for one person. When we dive deep I get cold easily but would prefer to just wear the 1.5 mil top.

For the boat I make sure we have a full fuel tank as soon as we get within a few miles of the dock because I don’t want to fill up to early and be driving on the highway with all that extra weight.
Plenty of extra Outboard oil.
Foul weather gear
2 bean bags
Safety gear: EPIRB, flares, etc.
Boat documentation for customs

2 long sleeve shirts
1 short sleeve shirt
one nice button shirt for dinner out one night
light pants for mosquitos and hot nights
2 pairs of boardshorts
Yeti Baseball cap which is my favorite right now
and absurdly large straw hat for sahara hot days in the bahamas sun
basic toiletries:
1. tooth paste and tooth brush
2. deodorant
3. 2 in 1 shampoo
4. bodywash (also use this for cleaning suits to get the smell of fish and me out)

Supplies:
figure 6 waters per person per day so a few cases of water
case of gatorade
case of beer
pre made mojito mix
few dozen Uncrustables for easy meals
ceviche mix pre-made. just add fresh fish for on the boat
chips and crackers for ceviche
Spices, butter, tin foil, tongs, sauces, for grilling fish and steaks
Steaks
We also try to plan out at least half of the nights meals and pre-make most of it so we don’t have to do much more than throw some stuff on the grill or heat up some pasta at the end of the day.
2 gallon and 1 gallon Ziploc bags

Cleaning knives (serrated blade Dexter Russell and Riffe Filet knife)

Three trolling rods (Penn 30′s for Tuna)
2 light spinning rods for Yellowtail
1 heavy spinning rod for dolphin and tuna on poppers
rigs for all three types of fishing

Yeti 155 cooler with 6 slabs of dry ice and the rest filled with regular ice. Try and save this for at least the first day or two.
Yeti 65 cooler with 6 blocks of chum, 3 boxes of squid, and ballyhoo if the Tuna are around

Suntan lotion!

Fill the rest of the spaces on the boat with Ice and dry ice and try to keep it as long as possible. Ice is hard to come by in the Bahamas and it is as expensive as Gasoline and sometimes more so it sucks to buy it!

Lastly your camera, charger, batteries, tapes, cards, underwater housings etc.

There is so much stuff that goes into a trip we tend to forget how giant the list can get. When you add 9 people on the ride across it makes you try and think of everything because it gets crowded fast.
A bit of planning goes a long way. We have been dividing up the jobs of getting stuff ready and I’ll think of more stuff to bring and let you know…
Cameron Kirkconnell

I appreciate you helping me out. I’ve been to the Bahamas a few times this year but there are boats that run over every weekend and any help or suggestions that you have are always welcome from those that take long trips in their boat or plan meals for the boat etc.
Can’t wait to hear the words of advice and put the plan in action!

Cameron Kirkconnell

I’m so honored that you are visiting my blog and hope that the pictures and stories here will bring you closer to the feeling that we as spearfisherman, divers and fisherman enjoy in our lives. As of now we have more than 30 stories and dozens of pictures on the site as well as a good youtube following. I wanted to give you a bit of background on myself and how I started into this sport, working for Riffe, and traveling the world spearing so many places and so many great fish and meeting so many good people.
In brief:
My family is from the Cayman Islands and diving, fishing and ships have been at the center of our lives for almost as long as the islands have been on the map.
I’m 33 years old and work as a Captain on huge ships getting paid to travel around the world and with a four months on and off schedule I’ve been able to spend months at a time in the best known dive spots in the world. Even better, I’ve been able to travel with my friends and family and discover the newer and better dive spots that have been the envy of the rest of spearfishing world.
We are always looking for that which hasn’t been done, specializing our gear and finding the perfect recipe for every location and fish we pursue.
I work year round with Riffe International (www.speargun.com) developing the latest and most hard core spearfishing equipment so that I can have the best gear perfectly suited to our hunting and abuse we encounter in third world countries and in less than ideal conditions.
I’m lucky to have scored some great fish along the way with my top ten favorites being:
#1 has to be Steve Bennet. 155 lbs. Speared at 75 feet after he had blacked out and was sinking to his death. Luckily the shot was true and the story you’ve likely already read. Steve glad you are with us my friend.
50 lb Wahoo shot by my father this past year diving together and I got it on video. One of my favorite days in the water ever.
119 lb Wahoo
Blue Marlin 280 lb (WR) (shot in the open water NOT TROLLING)
280lb Yellowfin Tuna
201 lb Dogtooth tuna (WR)
102 lb Spanish Mackerel
105 lb Amberjack
60 lb King Mackerel (WR)
28 lb Blackfin Tuna (WR)
35 lb African Pompano (Diamond Trevally) with a Hawaiian Sling
I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the original hosts of the show SPEARGUN HUNTER by Terry Maas. I took the team overseas to a secret spot and within the first two days shot and landed a World Record sized Pacific Blue Marlin. On that first trip we also landed more than a dozen big Dolphin (Mahi Mahi), Wahoo, giant Trevally and Yellowfin Tuna. Terry captured all of the action on video and but the video has never made it to TV and I obviously am not the host. It was a great experience but my refusal to let the video of shooting the record Marlin be shown on National TV did not go over well with the producers. It worked out good, they have a great host and I believe we kept even more restrictions and bad publicity for the sport from coming down on us by keeping the fish private. I have nothing against shooting billfish, but the hypocritical Sportfishing World will only bring more harm upon our sport we value so much.
It also worked out well because I can still go to all the best spots in the world and not worry about giving them away on national TV!
Over the years I have always written for different magazines and put videos up on the web and through Riffe, Spearboard, Spearfishingplanet, Facebook, my seminars in dive shops and emails answered hundreds of question on everything from gear to girls around the world and the best combination in between for spearfishing.
I don’t know everything there is to know about the sport but I have gathered information from every corner of every ocean and retained it and I hope that I can help every diver out there dive safely and enjoy the sport for years to come.
I will constantly work to make the blog better, more navigable, more informative and useful to you. As my internet connection allows while I am traveling overseas (which is about 8 months out of the year) I will download pictures and video for you to check out and enjoy.
I encourage everyone to participate in the blog and ask questions and get out of it what you want. This is my way of sharing my life with you and sharing my knowledge with you as well to make you a better, happier and safer spearfisherman or woman.
You can email me at cam@spearblog.com
On the Riffe Website: www.speargun.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=32
On YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/cameronkirkconnell
Thanks for visiting and stay in touch. The best part about this sport is all the people you meet around the world and learning from every diver you encounter whether they are in Alaska or South Africa or an inland lake in Missouri.

More long winded about me:
My parents had us in the water at and early age and we started freediving for conchs and lobsters in the shallows and holding on to our parents while they searched the reefs and drop offs for hours on end hunting Groupers and Hogfish in the crystalline waters of the Caribbean.

Its hard to not want to be a Spearfisherman with huge fish and lobsters at your feet as a one year old. Mom and Dad are still in the water whenever they can and I still wish I could have a day like this with a 10+lb Lobster and Giant Dog Snapper in the Caymans

As I got older we continued to spearfish and scuba dive in Florida from Jacksonville to Key West and up to Tampa.
When I was 14 years old I started saving for my first speargun and after two years I bought my first gun, a Riffe Hawaiian with a reel. One of the first days out on the water we found a school of cobia and I jumped in to be surrounded by more than a dozen and shot a 45lb one.
I self proclaimed myself a bluewater hunter on the spot and knew that there was nothing more I wanted in life then to be near the water and enjoying all it had to offer.
With my cousin I applied to the US Merchant Marine Academy and after a long selection process we were both accepted and began 4 years of military school life studying the sea and how to be professional mariners. I graduated in 1999 and went to work as a third officer on a cargo ship and set off to the Indian and Pacific Ocean. With all the charts of the world at my fingertips for 4 months at sea I saw the world of spearfishing shrink to a million possibilities and my mind started racing at the potential.
With no car, no house, no girlfriend I paid the ships agent $100 when I disembarked in Singapore and convinced him to delay my ticket back the USA for two months.
A new ticket in hand I set off for Bali Indonesia and fell in love with the incredible waves and huge fish that lived there.
For the last ten years I have traveled to spearfish in Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and half a dozen islands in Indonesia searching for bluewater fish and learning techniques and meeting the best in the world in their home waters. Whether it is your first day or your 60th year there is something to be learned from everyone you meet.
Diving in Australia I met Robbie Lewis and Tim Neilsen of Adrenaline Spearfishing in Brisbane and Robbie and I became instant friends. they set me up with my first sponsorships and quickly my emails to my friends telling them the latest tall tales of big fish and crazy shark encounters started showing up in Spearfishing Magazines which I had no idea even existed.
For so long we had dove just to hunt dinner and to think that there were spearfishing clubs and competitions seemed completely foreign to us.
I made a lot of friends and slept on a lot of couches and didn’t pay rent for about 8 years and owe more favors to more people in more countries than I can possibly ever repay.
From all of it I gathered more knowledge than I ever would have imagined from so many different situations and waters that have led us to be able to plan trips any month of the year any where in the world and with high rates of success.
In my travels I’ve been blessed with some memorable fish and a handful of world records and record size fish that were just short of the mark or disqualified for one reason or another. The most common cause was being in the middle of nowhere in Fiji or Indonesia without a proper scale (or refrigeration.)
Some of the most memorable records or near records: King Mackerel 58 lbs, Blackfin Tuna 32lbs wiht pole spear, Hogfish 21lbs, Golden Trevally 34 lbs, Pacific Blue Marlin 272lbs, Wahoo 119lbs,  Spanish (Narrow barred) Mackerel 102lbs, Dogtooth Tuna 201lbs, Dogtooth Tuna 245lbs,  and a few other close ones.
We’ve figured out how to be in the right place at the right time. How to read the weather and water and where to be in the water and how to approach fish and how to get the biggest one to come close to you even in the middle of the blue 100 miles from land.
I’ve only entered a few tournaments but have had decent success.
In three visits to the Hatteras Bluewater open in Cape Hatteras North Carolina I’ve won twice and finished 4th on the other. I enjoy tournaments for the main reason that it brings together like minded people together and gives you a chance to rag on your friends and for them to give it right back to you.
No one believes me but I am happier when someone else gets the fish of their lives or the fish of the day then I am for myself usually. Through my work with Riffe, dozens of dive shops and thousands of divers around the world I’ve had a smile on my face doing what I love for as long as I can remember. Even when I’m not there every email from a young diver telling me how stoked he is on my new camo pattern or some bands or a tip on shooting black groupers that helped him get the fish of the day makes me so happy.
I can’t wait to meet every one of you and hope that each can get something out of these pages if only a laugh or a temporary escape from normal life.
In the coming months I will be opening a few other sections of the website that are VIP access. This will be How-to videos and detailed trip advice for divers around the world who are ready to take it to the next level. Planning trips is one of my favorite things and doing it right and being successful having done it with your friends help and all your hard work is by far the most rewarding way to go. It pays to have someone on your side that has been there, done that, and has the scars and fish scales to prove it.

Dive safe and send me pics of your adventures anytime

Cameron Kirkconnell

This blog is a work in progress that I’ll try and keep you up to date on our trips and adventures around the world. Bear with me I do have a real job!