Hey gang,

Just coming over from the other forum. Hello ya'll.

I want to take my son and his friend out for some practice diving a pole spearing out of Sebastian Inlet tomorrow and was planning on going south for the shallow reefs. Was planning on the near shore stuff in 12-30 feet of water.

Wanting to make sure I don't get into any trouble with the kids along, so I checked out the Sebastian Inlet State Park website. It says that their boundry extends 3 miles south of the inlet and that spearfishing is prohibited. Doesn't say anything about how far out off shore this boundry extends.

Do I need to go further than the 3 miles south to pole spear? How far off shore do I need to go if I want to stay within the 3 miles of the inlet in order to be legal from a State Park perspective?

Thanks for any help. Leaving early so any quick answers would be much appreciated.

State park ends at the waters edge or MHHW line. They dont won't people with spearguns on the beach or with in a 100 yards of the beach. give me a few minutes to confirm.

68B-20.003 Spearing, Statewide Regulation; Prohibition Against Powerheads, Bangsticks, and Rebreathers; Repeal of Certain Special Acts.
(1) Spearing is lawful in all salt waters and salt tributaries located in the State of Florida except:
(a) As provided in Section 370.172, Florida Statutes; and
(b) As prohibited in this chapter, and elsewhere in Title 68B, Florida Administrative Code.
(2) Spearfishing is hereby prohibited:
(a) Within 100 yards of all public bathing beaches.
(b) Within 100 yards of all commercial or public fishing piers.
(c) Within 100 yards of that portion of any bridge where public fishing is legally permitted.
(d) Within 100 feet of the unsubmerged portion of any jetty, except that spearfishing shall be allowed along the last 500 yards of any jetty that extends more than 1,500 yards from the shoreline.



http://www.dep.state.fl.us/PARKS/planning/forms/FPSDistrict3.pdf

Water was beautiful inshore today good luck, should be some nice fish off the beaches to the south. Careful though, loaded with Goliaths.

Thanks for the help guys. We ended up going south about 11 miles, so we were basically offshore of Vero. We left the polespear at home and I decided to just give the boys some diving practice (they are 14 and 15).

Dove in 40' of water and it was like you say, beautiful. Visibility was easily 30', and the ledges that we found the boys named "The Reef on Steroids". They are right, I've never seen so many big fish huddled up around a small reef like that. Water was 82 degrees on top. I forgot to measure it on bottom, but it was still very warm.

There were giant snook, big schools of them. Lot's of good size mangos. Sheapshead. A giant Loggerhead Turtle. One of the largest Goliaths I've seen in a while. Two gigantic Sting Rays. One Gag. One lobster. Two cudas. Schools of Lookdowns, grunts, and various other grunt like fish. And the reef was just covered in bait fish that were so thick you couldn't see through them.

It's a little tricky achoring right on top of the good ledges that we marked on the bottom finder. It took us a couple of drops to finally get it right. But when we did, it was awesome.

We had a great time and they can't wait to go again. Of course, I'll be taking the speargun with me next time to get a few of those mangos and maybe a gag.

Get out there and dive, the conditions are awesome near shore right now.

See any bugs?

I saw one and the boys saw two; so three total.
The one I saw was good size but not giant.
You had to really stick your neck up in there to see em though.
It doesn't seem as though they're just poking their antennas out like I see in the Keys. The one's we saw were hiding well up inside the nooks and crannies.

I think they're there, your just going to have to work hard and real tight inside the ledges and hiding places to spot them.

Good luck.