# Team holy Snapper Spear-It Trapper Goes Lobstering!



## spearfisher (Oct 3, 2007)

Team holy Snapper Spear-it Trapper (minus a few of the usual suspects)loaded up on board the Snapper Trapper to go hunt some bugs yesterday. Florabama (Big Rich), holy Spear-it (Kevin), Badboy69 (Jerry), Mike Boitnott, Capt. Paul Redman, and myself went in search of the all illusive Spiny Lobster on the first day of the season. After a couple of test drops Kevin and I made a drop on some amazing natural bottom. Immediately we went in search of the ledges. I went left, and Kevin went right. As the old Knight in Indiana Jones 3 said, Kevin chose wisely. I, on the other hand, chose poorly. I swam, and swam, and swam and all I found was 2 shovel nose lobster. Kevin on the other hand stumbled onto the lobster and grouperUtopia. Having plenty of fish, Kevin decided to concentrate on the lobster. The size of the spiny lobsters that Kevin was pulling out was amazing, but almost every one was loaded with eggs. Out of all of those lobster, only one was barren of eggs, and it went in the boat. On the next dive Big Rich and Mike dropped on the same spot and Big Rich shot a nice Red Grouper. We moved on to another piece of natural bottom and Jerry, Kevin, and myself went down together. We hit the bottom and broke the huddle. Kevin and I swam forever looking for some nice ledges after swimming for what felt like a mile I finally found an awesom ledge. As I swam toward the ledge I could see antenna sticking out everywhere. I tickled the first bug out and in the bag it went. The next one decided to be stubborn and shot under a ledge that was amazingly deep under the rock. I finally got her tickled out, but she got out on the open sand and started shooting backward. I swam like a maniac trying to catch her, and finally did. She was HUGE, but when I flipped her over she was loaded with eggs, so she was released to make little baby Spiny's. Upon surfacing I hear, "Where's Jerry?" (which turned out to be the theme of the day.) Turns out that Jerry was busy wrestling a nice Red Grouper. On the way back home we stopped in State waters to shoot some snapper, and once again Big Rich dropped down and shot a monster Red Snapper. I thinkbig snapperisall his new Spearfishing Specialties gun knows how to shoot. We dropped on a couple more small wrecks on the way home,Ishot 2really nice Gags, and a few more Snapper. On one of the last dives of the day Mike finally got some blood on his new RiffeC3XS with a stud trigger fish. Once again we surfaced to "Where's Jerry?" Big Rich offered to free divedown and go find him, but we figured we could wait a few more minutes for him tocome up. Well, that turned into 15 minutes of waiting. WhenJerryfinally got back on board, he could barely speak he was so out of breath. When he could finally talk, he says "What are those big silver fish with rounded heads and long yellow fins hanging off the sides?" :doh We started laughing so hard that we couldn't talk, but when we could finally talk, we told Jerry that he had just gotten his ass whipped by a Jack Creval!! It was hilarious. Big Rich made the last drop and rounded out the fish box with 2 more nice snapper (in a shocker) and one more gag. He was also the first one to see a shark thankfully on the last dive of the day! We returned home exhausted, and sunburnt, but with a great box of fish and lobster. Once again, Capt. Paul Redman put us on some amazing spots. If anybody is looking to shoot some unbelievable fish, you need to give Paul a call. From natural bottom to small private reefs, Paul has the numbers. 

Pics should be up soon.


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## MrMom (Oct 8, 2007)

Sounds like a great trip. How deep do you have to go to find the lobster?


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## naclh2oDave (Apr 8, 2008)

Hey Rich, good recap on the day. Must have been a blast! Would you mind telling at what depth you found the spineys? Thanks if you do. Congrats on a good day.


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## Telum Pisces (Sep 27, 2007)

Nice report Rich. Look forward to some pics.

And what was the viz like? I am headed out this weekend and was wondering on whether to head deep or head east for decent viz.


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## FelixH (Sep 28, 2007)

Great report Rich! I wish I could have joined you guys, but I didn't get Kevin's voicemail until that morning.

Give me a call when you have a chance. I want to talk about the Bimini trip.


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## spearfisher (Oct 3, 2007)

We probably made 10 -15 dives between us, and the depth ranged from 75-120ft. The spiney lobster were around 120 ft. The viz was amazing! We had 100ft viz almost all day.


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## dpewitt (Oct 26, 2007)

Saw u guys at the cleaning table today. We were out with Capt Matt. Great looking grouper and man that lobster looked great! Good eats for sure.


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## spearfisher (Oct 3, 2007)

Thanks a lot. Looked like Matt put you guys on some fish. That looked like a fun trip. Its always a good day when you ended it cleaning a table full of snapper.


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## Sniper Spear-It (Jan 16, 2008)

i talked to some of the guys today and they said that to the east the vis was good.


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## craasch210 (Oct 4, 2007)

We were atthe teneco today and the viz was about 10 ft on the top and then opened up to about 70 ft on the bottom. Similar vis at the antares.


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## spearfisher (Oct 3, 2007)

Chris, how did the maiden voyage go?


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## BuckWild (Oct 2, 2007)

come on i am waiting on the bug pics!


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## spearfisher (Oct 3, 2007)

The camera is MIA. :banghead:banghead:banghead We think it got left on the cleaning table at the Pcola Beach Marina. We're going again tomorrow on another boat so hopefully there will be pics. Sorry.


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## craasch210 (Oct 4, 2007)

Rich, the maiden voyage went well, except that we did more drinking than diving. Didnt get much sleep and everyone was hung-over. We only did two dives the next day and then headed home. Landed a decent size aj and a few snapper. will post some pics up this week

Chris


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## Clay-Doh (Oct 2, 2007)

Sweet report Rich!!!! And of course...sounds like a hell of a bunc of good experienced guys out there slayin em agian!!!:letsdrink


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## BADBOY69 (Oct 3, 2007)

Dude, that bastard drug me 3/4 of a mile from the DZ! :doh He shot me 30' up into the column and then bounced, you heard, BOUNCED, me off the floor! I had silt and sand in my BC by the handfuls! I rode him with my eyes closed b/c my mask had been ripped from my face and the force woulda peeled my eyelids back! Note to self: Jacks are baaaad bitches! Thanks to Capt. Paul for being the only concerned one on the boat! Everyone else was cannibalizing my gear! :banghead


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## spearfisher (Oct 3, 2007)

> *BADBOY69 (8/12/2008)*Thanks to Capt. Paul for being the only concerned one on the boat! Everyone else was cannibalizing my gear! :banghead


Can you blame us!? That's some sweet custom built gear Fred Samford.


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## holy Spear-it (Oct 4, 2007)

I dont see where you had a problem Jerry! I got mine in the boat....of coarse big Rich pulled him in. But I got some video of that school after I shot him. Maybe yours was in it. I will have to show it to you sometime and see if you can pick him out.oke


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## Florabama (Oct 19, 2007)

OK, I found my camera. Thank you Lord! I thought I had left it on the cleaning table near Paul's boat, but it was in the pocket of my bathing suit in the dirty clothes. I'm sure glad I didn't have to explainto my wife how I lost her camera. 

Anyway, here's a few pics from the lobstering trip aboard the Snapper Trapper a couple of weeks ago. Capt Paul put us onTHE mostamazing natural bottom sites I've ever seen in 30 years of diving Pensacola, and that is not an exageration. We found terrraced ledges that had 10 feet of relief and some of the most beautiful tropical fish I've ever seen in this area. Mike Boitnot (sorry if I spelled that wrong Mike) who was diving with us, said for a minute, he thought Capt Paul had taken us to the Florida Keys -- that's how amazing it was (I believe we were very near, if not right under,the bouy marking the USS Massachusetts if you'd like to see it for yourself.Unfortunately, there were few lobsters that were not loaded with eggs. 

We did find a few nice grouper. I believe we ended upwith a grouper slam of sorts--gag, black and red. We came back into state waters and hit a few red snapper spots. On the last dive of the day, I was by myself on a close in spot that turned out to be loaded with legal snapper and afewgrouper. I was enjoying sitting on my knees in the sandand playing shooting gallery whenMr. Greysuitshowed up -- a nice little7 ft bullshark. Oh well, I had three on the stringer by thenand decided retreat was the better part of valor.










They look bigger in this pic


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