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Upper Gulfcoast This is the area for spearfishermen in Panama City, Destin/Ft. Walton, Pensacola, Alabama, Miss., and Louisiana.

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Old 05-09-2006, 11:07 PM   #1
LSUBigL
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Rig Freediving - it's about time!

Dtrain, ramblin', cypdog and I headed out of Belle Pass Saturday morning despite the decently sized and irregular swell. Given the slow going, we decided that we weren't going to go too far out, and we made our first stop in shallow water. I was in the water first, and came back to the boat in less than a minute with an 8-ish mangrove. I returned the second time in another minute or so with an equally large mangrove. And that pretty much sums up the way the rest of the day went. We hit half a dozen rigs or more, finding basically the same thing at all rigs, landing 22 mangrove snapper and most of them were jumbo! We only managed 3 Red snapper, and were somewhat disappointed with the number of them at the rigs.

Oh, and congratulations to Cypdog for his first fish ever...a MONSTER spadefish that he STONED!
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Last edited by LSUBigL; 05-10-2006 at 11:34 AM.
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Old 05-10-2006, 07:31 AM   #2
hornypiranha
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

Nice Mangos!
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Old 05-10-2006, 07:44 AM   #3
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

Nice work, how did you end up rigging your gun?
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Old 05-10-2006, 10:09 AM   #4
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

Sweet haul man. Good work!
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Old 05-10-2006, 11:13 AM   #5
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Griswold
Nice work, how did you end up rigging your gun?
I rigged my Riffe with a float line set up the way Bill McIntyre has posted pics of. it worked pretty well, except that I found it difficult to move around the rig as freely as i like to do because of all the entanglement issues. Once it became apparent that we weren't going to be shooting fish much below 10 or 15 feet because they weren't there to be shot, I switched over to my JBL. I had Ray Odor make me a JBL Hawaiian shaft in 5/16" thickness, and I used 2 5/8" bands rather than 3 1/2 inch. The new set up feels 50% more powerful than the old set up, and I have a new appreciation for my JBL now.
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Old 05-10-2006, 12:58 PM   #6
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

Nice trip, and good report.

On mangroves like that in the medium to short vis, I like to go to more of a scuba rigging on my gun. Just a single wrap of SS cable. I can get closer to the rig without a floatline.

Lots of great mangrove rigs there out of belle pass. Saw a triggerfish that looked 20#s over there. He was there on one dive, after I shot a mangrove. Couldn't find him again.
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Old 05-10-2006, 01:45 PM   #7
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

I hope you guys make it to the happy hour at Woodrows next Wednesday. If you're shooting that many fish in 15fsw I'm leaving the scuba crap at home and learning to freedive!
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Old 05-10-2006, 02:46 PM   #8
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

I was also using a 5/16" shaft with hawaiian flopper for the first time on my JBL. Man that is the way to go for these smaller fish. I'm used to shooting a 3/8" shaft with slip tip and powering up with 2-3 5/8" bands.

One band was plenty of power for that shaft and those fish. Only problem I had was the flopper fell down against the shaft while I was handling what WOULD have been my first Red Snapper of the day. As soon as I noticed it, he kicked himself right off the shaft and swam away

Any of you freedivers ever notice needing more/less weight as the day wore on? The second rig I dove it seemed like I needed to drop about a pound of lead due to less overall buoyancy. No gunnel hunching was involved...at least not at that point in the trip.
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Old 05-13-2006, 04:09 AM   #9
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

Nice Spadefish!!

Oh and i guess those mangroves are okay too

Looks like a great day in my books. Those are some real good eating.
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Old 05-16-2006, 08:53 PM   #10
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Re: Rig Freediving - it's about time!

Thanks for weeding out the small ones!!

Just kidding................. nice work!
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