Spearfishing Dog Snappers In Florida Keys
For some, spearfishing is only to be practiced in deep waters, or at open sea, hunting “difficult” species or trophy fish. What a load of nonsense! Shallow spearfishing is one of the best activities out there, easy, chilled, and with fewer risks. When that’s combined with a delicious prey, then that’s a day well spent. Alchemy partner Key West Waterman hit the shallows in search of dog snappers and lobsters. Check out how to find and hunt these awesome tasting guys! Dive In "It is April, the water's clear, but quite frankly there's not a lot to spear, so I'm gonna target a fish that kind of doesn't get enough credit for how delicious it is, and honestly not a lot of people talk about them. We're going to target dog snappers today and in my opinion, dog snapper is one of the best out of the shallow water snappers, right up there with mangrove. So I’m gonna show you where they are, how I’m hunting them, and all that good stuff. Dog snappers are the “grouper” of the snapper family, they like being in holes, they like hiding. You'll see them darting in and out of holes a lot, so a lot of it is hole hunting with a flashlight. They're very territorial and in some of the videos, you'll notice that once I find where they are, I'll go down and lay on the bottom and I'll just wait, because I know they're going to come back out eventually. They're very curious, sometimes grunting helps a little bit, but those are just some tricks to hunt them. There are a ton around, a lot of people pass them just because they simply don't see them or they don't really know how to hunt them". Meet Alchemy SKey West Waterman's Carbon Spearfishing Fins Of Choice
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06/05/2021
Key West Waterman Reef Spearguns
If freedivers are in love with their carbon fins, it's their guns that spearos are attached to! And they never replace a gun that gets fish, they just don't. No matter if it's old, rusty, and worn out, they'll keep that gun and use it in almost every dive, simple because it just gets the job done. Key West Waterman is no stranger to guns as he has actually personally built both his guns. In his latest YouTube video, he goes through the characteristics of each speargun, explaining why they are his favorite grouper hunting tools. Dive In! "Today I'm gonna go over my kind of reef setups, the two guns that I shoot most often. Before I dive in, just a thought, just because these are the guns that I shoot, that does not mean that they're the right guns for you. When I first started spearfishing, years and years ago, I had a tendency to listen to people that dove more than me and were more experienced than myself. I thought if I got what they had, I'd be this incredible diver and it turned out that not everything's right for everybody. So this is not the right way, this is not the right equipment necessarily for you, it could be, but just don't think that it is going to be!These are my two reef guns, I want to kind of compare them and then show you the subtle differences and why I use them and when I use them. I’ll start with this guy, this is the one that I shoot most. It is just under 53 inches, made of teak. Both of these guns are actually teak laminates, I built them myself years and years ago. About every two or three years I sand them down and refinish them, they held up pretty well. So they're both made of teak, they both have poured epoxy tracks, they're both enclosed. The first one, as I said, is about 52 inches and I shoot this more often than not. It’s got two 16 bands, a single flopper, got an Ulu Sub reel on here, this is 50 meters, you normally aren't going to need more than 50 meters on the reef. If a wahoo swims by, you might be in trouble, but I normally don't ever need more than 50 meters on the reef. All the mechanisms and whatnot are from Neptonics, they sell pretty much everything you need to build a gun. As I said, I did it years and years ago, these are still kicking, there’s a little corrosion on them but I dive more in a year than most people dive in five years and everything seems to be holding up just fine.This gun is what you would call a rear handle plus, I call it a mid handle and what that means is the trigger itself, the handle is different where the trigger mechanism is, there's a push rod here that makes this trigger push the actual trigger mechanism and it just gives you a little more band stretch. So technically a little bit of a shorter gun has a little more bang for his buck. My second one is the sister gun, I built it pretty much around the same time, different shape, this one's about an inch longer but like I said it has less band stretch and again band stretch is the amount of power you're going to have. The power and the length of a shot a gun can handle are determined by its band stretch and the number of bands. So from here to the end of these shark fin tabs is about 43 inches on this one. I shoot this guy mainly if I'm hunting really deep, it has a bigger reel if we're doing deep wrecks. Sometimes I'll clip it off on a buoy for pelagic just as a backup. One of the main differences is its double flopper for bigger fish, deeper fish around the wrecks. If you shoot something big in a wreck, you really need to horse it, so it doesn't get rocked up, so I like the double flopper on there.This is actually what's called a rear handle. The handle is all the way to the back of the gun, and the handle and the trigger are aligned, they are together. Again Ulu Sub reel, this one is I believe 90 meters. As I said, the main differences between the two guns here are double flopper - single flopper. Double flopper I like for bigger deeper fish around wrecks that I can horse, just in case I've had big fish break these floppers off. And then the other difference is the rear handle - mid handle. Personally, I like a little bit of mid-handle and the reason being when I'm tracking a fish I have a little more here to grab onto and it allows me to kind of pivot that gun like that, a little easier to track rear handles are fun too. Another advantage to the rear handle is you get a little more reach you're putting that gun a few more inches closer to that fish when you make that shot"! Meet Alchemy SAaron's Carbon Spearfishing Fins Of Choice
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05/05/2021
A Renowned Thai Actor Joins The Alchemy Team
Nantawut Boonrubsub, aka Woody, is a professional, renowned Thai actor. When Woody isn’t working for TV or cinema, he enjoys spending his time below the surface of the water by being an avid freediver and spearo. Here are 4 things you should know about him! He Got Into The Sport During A Snorkelling Trip In Phuket "During that day I saw a freediving team dive down to 6-10 meters. They stayed in the water for what seemed like ages, diving and taking pictures; I couldn’t believe my eyes! As the days passed, I could not stop thinking about it. My wife prompted me to take freediving lessons and so I did! As an actor, my life is pretty busy. I meet a lot of people, everyone is very loud, things can get pretty hectic. Underwater everything stays absolutely still; that’s where I can hear my heartbeat and find peace". Via Freediving People Respect The Ocean More "In the past few years, freediving has become very popular in Thailand and I think that’s good, as most Thai people start to understand that freediving is actually a sports activity. Proper teaching and training are also provided so that recreational freedivers are able to dive more safely. The most important aspect of that is that when people get to see the beauty under the sea, they become more aware of our marine environment and that makes them want to protect the ocean". He Missed Receiving An Award Because He Had Planned A Dive "That was an embarrassment, indeed. The event was meant to start very early in the evening and I was lined up as one of the recipients of the award. I had planned a freediving trip for the next day and had to take a flight that night, so I spoke to the event producer and enquired about the time that the award will be given to the winner - I did not know if I had won or not. He said that it would be around 19.00 and politely asked me to wait. At 19.30 I could not wait any longer, and sort of jumped off to the airport. A few minutes later, the winner was announced. My wife had to go on stage and receive the award for me"! He Is Planning To Compete In Korea & Turkey "There are two competitions that I would like to attend, one in Korea and one in Turkey. I’ve started training for those already. I’d also like to spend 3-6 months training for next year, managing the rest of my time between acting and teaching". Meet Woody's Short Carbon Fins Of Choice
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05/05/2021
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