BigBendFishing.Net

No spearing...just diving for fun!

Booked a trip to Islamorada with a local dive shop here in GA. We left Atlanta on Thursday afternoon at 5:00 pm on a custom motor coach. Plenty of cold beer and story telling on the way down with a nice group of folks.
They drove all night and we arrived at the motel around 6:30 am Friday morning. The boat wasn’t leaving until 12:00, so we eat breakfast, walked around the dock, checked out the boat and scenery!
The dive boat was a 46 foot Newton dive special, with twin diesels. Very nice!

Around 12:00, we loaded the boat and headed to Davis Reef. A nice 5-7 foot ledge in 30-40 feet…..It was like diving in an aquarium.. probably 80 foot vis….breath taking. Water temp was 74 and air temp was around 85. My Dive buddy (wife to be) and I stayed down for 55 minutes. We were the last one’s on the boat ….but the captain said come back with a minimum of 500 psi in the tanks….and we both had close to 1000 when we loaded up… Oh well…no one was mad. Kind of brought back memories from the movie “open waterâ€

Looks like a fine trip, wtg.

Nice trip. We go to Tavernier. Not much to see on the little conch. The protected reefs out from the state park are nice.

Did I read that right? A dive boat gets to tell first on fishing boats to move? Is that a law or something?

It's a law alright. Commonly called the "Laws of Gross Tonnage." He stated that the Captain of the cattle boat (dive charter) spoke to the other captains. The conversation probably went something like, "Scoot over monkeyboats, I'm about to dump a load of divers in the water whether you like it or not cause I'm a bigger boat and this is a public number and I have to make a living and ......" I'm sure the smaller fishing boats could have stayed, but when a herd of divers swarm below your boat, there's no need wasting time there anymore. This is a common happening off of Panama City also. It's not necessarily fishing boats that get run off, but also smaller private vessels with divers. Nothing quite like spearfishing a wreck with three of your buddies in not-so-great visibility only to have about 3 dozen strange divers drift down on top of you. We ascended to the surface only to find the bow of about a 50 foot dive boat bobbing up and down over the transom of our boat!

I'm not ranting about divers vs fishermen, but rather "Cattle" boats vs everyone else on the water because I'm an avid diver myself. I also realize that not all charter captains- actually the vast majority- do not operate that way, but a few bad apples spoil the barrel.

Actually two of the boats that were fishing stayed. There was another spearing and the bubble watcher on board said that her divers were due up in two or three minutes and they were heading else where. She was hot by the way..... Sorry no pics of the HOTD, but if it helps she was wearing a bikini, on a 30 foot Contender with twin 250's.
Anyway....back to the subject at hand...
I still felt bad about pulling between the fisherman.......but it was a public number!!!!!!! Not like we pulled up on someone's secret spot and went sight seeing.

GC wrote:I still felt bad about pulling between the fisherman.......but it was a public number!!!!!!! Not like we pulled up on someone's secret spot and went sight seeing.

Fine, If I am there fishing, and you stop to dive, I am 100% not responsible if someone down below ends up with a hook in their arse. If I were going to a spot and saw folks diving I would go to another, divers should do the same.

I was not driving the boat!!!! If cracker is at the helm he would NEVER pull up on other fisherman and dive! I don't even like pulling up to K-tower when there are other boats there.....but I have and have had others do it to me! As I'm sure the rest of you have also.....

Sorry was not implying you were driving.

No harm!

But, divers take note!!! Stockwell will put a hook in your arse and use you for catfish bait if you dive his fishing hole!

At some public spots like the adolphus busch their are fishing bouys and dive bouys. The fishing bouys are anchored to the sides of the boat, and dive bouys are anchored to the bow and stern. So if you have a crossing tide (port to starboard or vice versa) the fishing is good, however that has never been the case when I have fished there. We use a wreck anchor and hook up to the boat and fish when divers are not present. I guess you can attach your boat to the dive boat bouys, we have not but other fishermen have.

I have spent a couple of weeks a year in the Keys for the last 20 years. I fish and dive both and the situation down there is a lot different than we have in the upper gulf. There is so much habitat for both sports that there is no need to get in each others way. When they created the no fish areas in the keys a few years ago I was disappointed as a fisherman, because up until then I had mainly fished and dove the well published numbers. What this did to my fishing is forced me to look for new locations, just like we do in the in the gulf to avoid other boats that are usually just fishing. Now I never go near those well known area to fish, but only to dive. I can tell you this. Since they designated the no fish areas areas like Looe Key etc. these areas are even more loaded with bigger, wilder creatures. Also, as Bait Boy mentioned, all of the "public reefs" have tie up buoys so you don't get a ticket for damaging the reef with your anchor (up to $250,000) yes, this is not a misprint. I guess to sum it up, in the Keys there are so much good bottom that you don't have to get on top of anybody to do your thing! Up here its not that crowded yet! Everybody that post here obviously loves boating and the ocean. If you've never been to the keys you owe it to yourself to go. They have a style all their own!