American Reds and Grouper during the Southern Open Spearfishing Tournament
June 2nd, my alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. to start the day, we were headed out to compete in the Southern Open to shoot groupers and red snappers!
The gang is made up of Ryan Conigliaro and Scott Roberts from Salt Block as well as James Ware and Lee Hoagland. We met up at the marina, loaded up the gear and shoved off headed way north to the first spot.
The spot was a public number that’s usually pretty dead with just a few mangroves. Since it is a tournament and we needed a lot of fish, I plugged in a private secret spot.
We anchored the boat and got in the water, we went full savage and we got our limit of red snapper and six beautiful groupers! We decided to go to our next spot, a wreck. We hopped in and I immediately speared a stud grouper with my polespear!
The day was about as perfect as it could get, flat seas, crystal clear water, good friends and great vibes! We went to a few spots that day and Lee and James shot more good fish.
I was topside on the boat, Scott came up and told me that there is a big grouper in the hole below. I told him to grab the polespear if he thought it is a world record fish.
He dropped down and stuck the fish, but it rocked up. I had him shoot it again with another polespear. At this point the grouper was rocked up deep inside the ledge, three or four dives later; the fish was in the boat with everyone safe and super stoked! That fish could be a world record on a polespear.
I want to extend a big thank you to everyone on the boat that day and to Melony Engil and the FSDA for putting together an epic tourney. Congrats to James Ware for winning 2nd place in the freediving category.