Cedar Key spearfishing: 07-02 2014

Use this area to post diving and spearfishing fishing reports from the area Please try to include relevant information such as:
Location, date, time, water conditions, weather conditions, bottom temp, visibility, species caught, etc.

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Big Bend Brian
Posts: 345
Joined: May 15th, 2002, 8:00 pm
Location: Ponte Vedra/Cedar Key

Cedar Key spearfishing: 07-02 2014

Post by Big Bend Brian »

My original Plan A was to offshore fish St Augy on Wednesday but TS Author messed up those plans with forecasted winds stronger than I wanted to run & fish in. Ironically on Tuesday my friend Evan from Gainesville called with an offer to spearfish Cedar Key and it appeared that TS Author was not expected to have much of an impact in the Gulf-forecasted winds were only 10 knots. Perfect…I love fishing & diving out of Cedar Key so Plan B it is!

Plan B: Wednesday morning I left Ponte Vedra early to meet Evan and his crew at the Cedar Key dock 3 hours away. We quickly stowed gear and launched the boat. On board Evan’s 28 foot AmeraCat catamaran was his 6 year old son Ethan (a TROOPER!!), his father Johnny and his friend Kennedy. Conditions were excellent at the ramp with light easterly winds and it looked like it would be a gorgeous day.

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Evan’s 28’ AmeraCat
A great platform to dive off of!

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Running out

On the way out Evan and his father Johnny did a quick dive in 56 feet to check out a spot and picked up a couple of red grouper and hogs. I gotta say it’s really, really cool for a son to be able to dive & spearfish with his father! Evan and Johnny have had many adventures together and it was cool to be part of another one with them.

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3 generations of Stern’s!!
Six yr old Ethan was a TROOPER the entire day offshore!

After that we continued offshore starting in 72 feet and working easterly inshore to shallower water as we hit numerous spots- almost all of them small so we did bounce dives. Every drop would end up in a couple of fish, some of which the red groupers were really nice sized fire trucks.

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Kennedy with a nice pair of reds - one of which would go 17.5 lbs at the dock.

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Me with a red

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Ethan with his father and a couple of reds

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Ethan the trooper!

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Kennedy with the last gag of the day

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Second count to double check numbers:
9 reds, 5 gag, 3 hogfish, 2 scamp, and 2 mangos

Conditions: From 72 - 45 feet the U/W temperature was 85 ˚F with a dark thermocline at 33 feet. Above the thermocline the water was dark & dirty. On the bottom horizontal vis was 40 feet with a fair amount of suspended particulate. A few nurse sharks were seen plus three large jewfish (Goliath) hanging out on a long 5 foot ledge.

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Gotta love fresh phish samwitches over July 4th holiday weekend!

Hoo Yah!

Brian
Last edited by Big Bend Brian on July 4th, 2014, 11:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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boomhauer
Posts: 127
Joined: January 21st, 2002, 8:00 pm

Re: Cedar Key spearfishing: 07-02 2014

Post by boomhauer »

Awesome report. Vis has been improving steadily. We rarely make it deep enough for the trucks, but have done well on the gags. Been a good hog year to the north.
Thanks for posting.
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ontiltttttt
Posts: 168
Joined: October 29th, 2012, 12:20 am
Location: Tallahassee, FL

Re: Cedar Key spearfishing: 07-02 2014

Post by ontiltttttt »

Awesome, just awesome! :thumbup: :beer: :lick:
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Ifishtoo
Posts: 194
Joined: May 23rd, 2013, 11:32 am
Location: NORTH OF PORT SAINT JOE

Re: Cedar Key spearfishing: 07-02 2014

Post by Ifishtoo »

Nice post. Looks like a great day on the water:

Nice weather + Good friends + Some smiling young faces = Goes down as makin memories!

My memeory says 72ft out of Cedar Key is around 30 miles? I may be off 4-5 miles. Been many years since I made some of those trips. I do remember running out of the NW channel to the Northern area of the Middle Grounds..... was 72 miles. That same area is 65 miles SSE out of Apalachicola. Plenty of great fishing within 35 miles of Cedar Key.
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tallykenj
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Joined: December 16th, 2009, 9:17 pm

Re: Cedar Key spearfishing: 07-02 2014

Post by tallykenj »

That's cool. My daughter and I want to try spearfishing sometime.
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