May 16, 2019 Spearfishing Report - Rhode Island - Dave Gleeson

Date: 5/16/19

Location: Southern RI

Viz: 15-25’
Temp: 51

Gear: Rob Allen Roller 80cm & 90cm

Report Contributor: Dave Gleeson

After a few days of light and variable winds, conditions were beautiful for a spring dive in RI. Visibility ranged from 15-25 feet, and life was abundant, with plenty of tog, stripers, pufferfish and even a scup to keep me entertained. 

I headed out with Aaron Hampton of Tristate to look for some fish taco meat (tog) and hopefully find the first scup and striper of the season. We were thrilled with the conditions upon getting in the water, and quickly loaded up to start hunting. We were both using Rob Allen Roller guns, perfect for clear viz hunting. Even with such clarity, our short guns had plenty of range with the roller’s extra power.

The chop started to pick up, but I quickly found my first target of the day, an aggressive male tog that charged me while I ascended to the surface. I halted my ascent, turned around and placed a shot just behind his eye from the midwater column. Aaron got another soon after in the same size class. 

About 20 minutes later, I dropped into a school of tog and found a single VERY fat scup hiding under an overhang. I froze, and waited as he slowly turned to allow me a shot- I string him through the eyes.

A school of small stripers about 100 strong were sighted a few times during our dive, a great treat in such clear water and undoubtedly a sign of things to come.

The water is clear, the fish are out in numbers and the bigger stripers should be here any day…. Get out there soon!!! I know I sound like a broken record, but if you’re looking for a laser-accurate gun, go grab a Rob Allen Roller from Mike at New England Freedive- I don’t know many guns that can hold their own in both 3ft murk and 25foot clarity.

Get out there and enjoy the spring.

Dive Safe

Dave

Report - Tristate Skindivers 9th Annual Tog Blast Spearfishing Tournament - Dave Gleeson

Date: 10/13/18 TOG BLAST

Location: Newport, RI

Viz: 2-8’
Temp: 63

Report Contributor: Dave Gleeson

Conditions were tough for TriState’s annual Tog Blast tournament, but a handful of divers out of the 23-man field weighed in some respectable fish, including a beastly 12# Tog from Eric Faust!

Mike Meyer and myself headed out mid morning. Strong winds from the NW and the heavy rain from the day prior left me with low expectations in terms of visibility. Sure enough, our first stop out front was tough, with a strong ground swell churning up the bottom enough to reduce viz to less than 5 feet. Past a depth of 40 feet, it turned impossible to see anything. I ended up shooting my personal best black seabass, a 3.8lb specimen who holed up and took nearly 30 minutes of effort to extract from the rocks. Without Mike, I would have had to cut the line and call it a loss- just another reason a good buddy is important to have while diving.

Over an hour into our day, and we still hadn’t seen a tog big enough for a chance at the tournament podium, let alone had a shot at one. We pulled our anchor and shot up inside the bay, straight into the wind and chop in my small zodiac. We had better luck here, with about 8ft viz in some spots. I took one healthy male tog, weighing in at 7.8lbs, just enough to earn 3^rd place in the tog blast. Mike took a nice male as well.

The fish are certainly in, and in decent numbers. As long as the swell and wind continues, the  toughest part in the coming weeks is going to be finding clear enough water to hunt them.

Thanks again to Mike Meyer and Mike Landau for putting on another awesome tournament, and congratulations to Eric on an awesome fish to win it.

Results, top 3 fish.
Eric Faust - 12.0 lbs
Eric Cadorette - 9.7 lbs
Dave Gleeson - 7.8 lbs

 

Dive Safe

Dave

July 18 & 19 Spearfishing Report, Newport RI - Dave Gleeson

Date: 7/18/18 &7/19/18

Location: Newport, RI

Viz: 4-12’
Temp: 70

Report Contributor: Dave Gleeson

With diminishing winds and clear skies on Wednesday afternoon, John Harrington, Casey Harrington and myself set out off Newport on their zodiac for a last minute bass mission. Visibility at our first two stops was very poor and barely huntable, so we kept moving.

Birds were working all over the place, and everywhere you looked seem to have breaking fish on the surface- it was extremely fishy out there.

I hopped in to our final dive spot and landed on a school of nice fish on my first drop. With the sun going down, I wasn’t picky and pulled the trigger on a good 20-25lb class fish at about 30 ft. The Rob Allen roller gun is a laser, and even at only 80cm packs a punch- I brained the fish with the shot and brought it to the surface. (After sliding the shaft through, the fish woke back up, check out the video clip of that surface fight!)

I hopped in the zodiac and swapped with John, who quickly shot a good bass, as did casey.

A successful day to say the least!

7/19/18

The following morning, I kayaked out front with Tristate VP Mike Meyer. I did some filming in the shallows, and he did some RnR fishing for giant scup and seabass. Conditions were calm and sunny, with little wind, but visibility remained poor. Eventually, we got into bass again, and I shot another fish in the 20-25lb class at about 35ft.

The bass are all over the place, and moving quite a bit it seems. While there are thousands of schoolies, the bigger schools are certainly out there if you have the patience to wait for them. This seems to be one of the better local bass runs in my memory, so if you have the time to get out, do it!

Good luck and dive safe,

Dave