Day 1:
Friday afternoon I drove from Orlando to Lutz and stopped by Ray Odor's house to pick up some extra shafts. What an amazing man. I wish I could listen to his stories for hours. Unfortunately I had to haul a** down to Ft. Myers.

I got there about the time that the previous charter was unloading. They slew the fish and had a boat limit of bugs. We were hoping to do the same. We got off to a late start and left the dock sometime after 8.

Day 2:
We woke up Saturday morning in the New Grounds North West of the Marquesas. There was a fairly strong current with low vis. It looked like it was snowing! Depth was 25 - 30 feet.

We did catch some bugs, but they were not as plentiful as I had expected. One thing that surprised me was finding numerous wrung heads. There were hundreds of dead lobster heads dumped back in the water. I thought they had to be brought back whole. It could have been poaching.

On the 4th dive of the day, I had a red grouper and 2 hogs on my stringer attached to my BC. The water was still milky, 4 - 6 foot vis. I felt something hit my side. Damn it. The biggest jew fish I had ever seen had my entire stringer in its mouth. I pulled the release on the snap shackle and gave up the fish. I know not the best thing, but it already had them . The fish swam off for a bit, but came right back like a puppy looking for more!

Day 3:
We woke up about 30 miles south of the Marquesas. Again 25 - 45 feet deep, but the vis was over 100 feet. This time bugs were plentiful. Hogs were plentiful. Red grouper were there, but not overly large. Small gags and juvenile jew fish were there. The last dive we found schools of yellow tale snapper.

We did the third dive about 1:30. The capt announces that we need to make the most of it, because Faye was on her way. Seas had kicked up to 6- 10 by the end of the dive making climbing the ladder interesting.

My camera flooded on Day 2. I lost my stringer. The trip was cut short. The ride back the boat rocked and rolled. I still haven't been to the Tortugas. You win some, lose some.:pissed:

It is a nice boat with a good scuba setup. The crew did a good job filling the tanks after each dive. You never had to remove your BC! They took the catch and marked them as you came on board. It makes cleaning them easier, but you don't get many photos.

I was impressed with the food. Vick did a great job in the galley with the limited resources. The forward berths had 8 bunks. Very cozy. You do hear every wave that splashes. There were 12 bunks aft. I am not sure if they heard the waves over the twin diesels. This is not a luxury liner. It is a nice diving live aboard.

We did catch some bugs, but they were not as plentiful as I had expected. One thing that surprised me was finding numerous wrung heads. There were hundreds of dead lobster heads dumped back in the water. I thought they had to be brought back whole. It could have been poaching.

Makes you wonder who else has that number? Not cool.

considering it was well into the season, i doubt the heads were from lobsters caught preseason, but def. atleast someone over their limit would be my guess.

Also, 30 miles south of marquesas= VERY DEEP water, you sure you didn't mean west?

considering it was well into the season, i doubt the heads were from lobsters caught preseason, but def. atleast someone over their limit would be my guess.

Also, 30 miles south of marquesas= VERY DEEP water, you sure you didn't mean west?

yea.....30miles south put you in over 1000ft

wonder if the wrung heads are from the guy that was poaching/charged.

sound like a good trip though. who was captain...jojo?

It should be noted that some of the commercial lobster dive boats have what they call "Tailing permits". These permits allow the fisherman to remove the heads so that the lobsters can be iced for a couple of days. If the heads are not removed, the lobster blood tends to congeal into a very unappetizing black gel.

If your dive was during the regular season, anytime after Aug 6, it's possible that a commercial dive boat got there first. The New Grounds are hardly a secret spot, I dove it myself last week.

Of course, it could also have been poaching.

Glad you had a good trip, sorry it was cut short.

I am not as familiar with the water off the keys, but New Grounds is on the chart. There were commercial traps out there, so maybe it was just normal commercial activity.

I am sure we were south west of the Marquesas on day 3. We would have been somewhere south of Rebeca Shoal?? I judged from looking at the chart and how long it took us to get into the pass. The boat can only do 10 - 12 knots.

Other than being short, it was a good trip. We definitely would have hit the boat limit on bugs if it wasn't short.

Just curious, is the vis usually that bad in the New Grounds?

from my experience it is usually dirty in new grounds. The strong current and the sandy bottom all around it usually gets stirred up pretty good imo. I'm sure there are times where it clears up, but we usually run past it and keep going out to rebecca.

If commercial guys can get a tailing permit then that would make sense b/c most of the trappers will do a 3 day trip around there and it would be easier to ring the tails then to keep them whole. Couldn't be out of season poaching b/c the heads would have been long gone by now.

That's interesting about the heads on the bottom after the trap boats came through.

I remember diving inside the reef line and finding trap after trap with the buoys stuffed inside. Which means someone other than the owner of the trap pulled it, took the lobster, and stuffed the buoy inside to make it look like the trap was lost.

Fellas, be careful about calling out any "Commercial Divers" as poachers. Not every lobster diver in the Keys is a David Driefort. Believe me they are all mad at him about his bullshit too.

This letter below is from today’s Key West Citizen.

“The commercial lobster divers of
the Florida Keys damn the actions
of poacher David Dreifort. He has
always been a bad egg and we are
all better off with him behind bars.”



And the trapping industry doesn’t care who "YOU" are. If you’re a diving anywhere around a trap buoy you’re stealing "THEIR" lobster and you’re a poacher. They never dive underwater to see their buoys "stuffed" by their fellow trapper as I stated above. They think divers robbed their traps and cut the ropes. I've had to pull my gun up out of the water on more than a few trapper to get my point across because they where waving machetes’ at me or holding up pistols. It‘s really no fun to have to dive down as fast as you can when a trap boat sees you diving and does his best to run right over the top of you. I’ve wasted a few shafts shooting into props as they pass directly overhead at full speed too.

Believe me they monitor this site regularly, reading everything we write so they can used it against us down the line.

Be Careful what you write.

Rick