Divers in southeast Florida didn’t waste any time as the new Atlantic Hogfish Season opened in May. On the first day, my buddy Kevin Mehaffey, a Broward County firefighter, shot this beautiful 23.75 incher, while freediving in 80 feet of water. His shooting line broke when he fired and he had to pull it out from under a wreck! Kevin thanked his dive buddy for having his back, diving to meet him as he surfaced. As of May 11th, his big hogfish is at the top of the freediving leaderboard of the Florida Spearfishing Tournament, (flspearfishing.com), and Ethan Olah, a scuba diver, leads with a 22.1 inch hogfish.
Hogfish are most commonly speared, as they seldom bite on a hook and line. They are timid and most other fish usually beat them to the bait. They are bottom feeders eating mostly invertebrates, which is why their meat is so white and doesn’t taste fishy. We see them often bouncing on their substantial snouts in the sand, sometimes oblivious to divers, so they are frequently a new spearos first fish. Real big hogs are usually found in deep water and are around 20 pounds and 40 inches long. The freediving IUSA World Record is 24.5 pounds.
While making a back-dive on scuba to retrieve a monster black grouper, I stoned my biggest hogfish (23 pound), while it was mesmerized by the smoke cloud from the rocked-up grouper. A nice bonus!
The new regulations for hogfish from Florida’s east coast and Keys, are 1 per harvester per day, measured 16 inches on the fork, and the season stays open through October. More info can be found on myfwc.com.
Shoot straight and be safe!
Capt. Chad Carney
(727) 423-7775
www.floridaskindiver.com
email: chad.carney@yahoo.com