May 18, 2017 Scott Bianco Spearfishing Report - 19.26 lb Tautog !

Date: May 18, 2017

Report Contributor: Scott Bianco

Thank you to Scott for graciously taking the time to give us a report of him freedive spearfishing that 19.26 lb Tautog !  Can I call it TOGNASAURUS ?

It all started with a text "got time for a quick after work dive?". After a long day the last thing I felt like doing was trailering the boat down and taking a beating from the south gusting wind. After much debating I decide why not lets do it. At the ramp I almost called it while looking out at the gusting wind figuring there wouldn't be much vis. Brian convinces me to make the boat trip and we head out. Once there we anchor in some shelter from the wind and suit up. Conditions aren't the best, south wind with an outgoing tide, the top five feet had a brown haze making the vis about 2 feet but opening up to great 8' vis below. 

As we swim away from the boat and towards the rocks Brian says to me go left and he will go right. I head off to the left and start to make my first drop of the evening. I start my decent and about 3 feet down I notice a white chin through the haze passing me on my right shoulder. I level off and remain motionless, only moving my eyes to track the fish. The white spot barley visible passing in front of me towards the left, then circles back to dead center.

The words of a great dive friend going through my head ,don't move anything don't move your fins relax and be part of the ocean. I was able to see a little patch of white belly behind the white chin so I knew from the spacing that the fish was of good size.I kept my gun pulled in tight to my body making sure not to "track the fish" waiting patiently for the fish to turn and become centered in front of me. I shot between the two white patches and the spear landed center mass and the white spots stopped moving instantly. 

I swam up to it and got a solid grasp on the barb end of the spear and pulled the fish in tight to my body and started swimming it up to the rocks. Once  I had a grasp on the fish it came to life like they usually do, but this one was different I knew I had something bigger then I have ever shot before. With a good amount of struggle I manage to get me and the fish on the rocks and out of the water. Seeing the fish out of the water really hit home fast just how big this fish really was. I held on with both hands for a few minutes till I knew the fish was dead. The ocean offered up an amazing fish to us that evening. Fish prints will be made to honor the life of the fish.   

Scott Bianco

May 18, 2017 Narragansett Bay Spearfishing Report - Ricardo Cruelles

Date: 5/18/2017 

Location: Narraganssett Bay

Report Contributor: Ricardo Cruelles

A QUICK LUNCH BREAK DIVE!

When the mercury hit 99 today in RI’s Capital City, I knew it was time to get down bay and hop in for a quick lunchtime dive. I met up with @roosterman at the agreed upon spot, we suited up and jumped in, not wasting any time. 

The water temp was about 56 degrees, very comfortable with a 5mm suit, viz was very nice for the bay, although when the tide started ripping in it went dark quickly.

On the way to one of my faithful spots, I decided to dive under some structure and, much to my surprise, a legal bass came at me like a WWII Kamikaze….. BANG! That was definitely his last mission! A nice start with an early bass in the stringer. I continued on with my swim and made a few dives on decent piles of fish. We were being selective so we made a few more dives before taking our limits of tog. One of the fish went to 9lbs today.

The wind and the tide kicked up and we knew it was time to get back to work, but not before harvesting enough mussels for a nice meal. Mike was on a mission to win a bet he had going with boys, apparently the 1^st one to get a Sea Robin was to be the winner, well, he nailed a nice one within 5 minutes of being in the water!

Weather looks ok this weekend, with the exception of some wind moving in, I say find some lee and get in there! It is definitely fishy out there and the water is starting to warm up nicely. Lots of schoolie size bass with the occasional larger fish mixed in, I even saw a couple schools of scup today!

Thanks to @roosterman for couple of the pics and congrats on some tasty sea robin table fair.

Pura Vida!

Ricardo

May 1, 2017 Newport RI Spearfishing Report - Dave Gleeson

Date: May 1, 2017
Dive location: Newport
Report Contributor: Dave Gleeson

After a successful trip just a few days earlier, I decided to try my luck again. My dad and I scooted out after work for what would prove to be a short mission, as the fog was rolling in heavy off newport. Water temperature was 50 and visibility was about 8ft. We ran into some big tog right away, and in no time put a few on the stringer. With dark approaching, getting our limit took a little more patience because of the reduced visibility/lack of daylight. Again with the aid of the dive light, we found some more tog holed up in shallow caves and got our limit. We also noticed more free swimming fish, a sure sign of warming weather. 

Get out there, and dive safe! 
Dave

Weather is not looking so good for Saturday with rain coming so let's hope the storms do not effect the visibility for those looking to get their fish on Sunday.

April 28, 2017 Newport RI Spearfishing Report - Dave Gleeson

Date: 4/28/17

Location: Newport, RI

Report Contributor: Dave Gleeson

It’s that time of year again!!! The water temp has finally creeped to 50 degrees, and the tog are back in their spring haunts. We set out this Saturday to look for the first fish of the year, and were handsomely rewarded.

Visibility was a hazy 6 feet, but certainly good enough to hunt.  We began seeing tog holed up under boulders in the first 10 minutes or so, and got to work filling our stringers. I shot a nice male shortly after, but had to spend nearly 30 minutes pulling it from a cave that it retreated to. While I was dealing with that mess, my dive partners both limited out with a few really nice fish to 23”.

The weather doesn’t look great for the next few days, but if you can find a rockpile in the lee then you stand a good chance at finding some early season tog. If you own a dive light, use it! If you don’t, give NEFreedive a call and get one! With the water still cold, the majority of fish were deep in caves and hiding in rocks, and having a light may be the difference between going home with a full stringer or going home empty handed.

Happy hunting, DIVE SAFE

Dave

Be sure to check out Dave's incredible photography at www.DaveGleeson.com  !

Event Report - Tristate Skindivers Club 6th Annual Species Meet 8/6/2016

Date: 08/06/2016
Event: Tristate Skindivers Club 6th Annual Species Meet
Location: Weigh In at the Bon Vue Inn - Narragansett, Rhode Island

Last Sunday on August 6th the Tristate Skindivers Club hosted what has grown to become the premier spearfishing event in the North East each season. With over 65 competitors this season this event has become the ultimate competition for freedive spearfishermen in New England due to the level of competition, grand support form sponsors and the awesome spearfishing community we have up here in the North East. The format for the competition is called a "Species Meet" which is different from the usual total weight tournaments often hosted and requires divers to be able to harvest and weigh in 1 fish from each fish species available to hunt and weigh in as listed in the tournament rules.  The more different species you can harvest, the more points you accumulate, the better your points standing at weigh in time. Competitors have a full day to hunt Rhode Island waters from sunrise that morning and require them to be at weigh in at 5:00 pm . There is also a max limit on points that can be given for a particular single fish (like a striped bass), so you actually don't do any better to shoot a 50 lb bass as you do to shoot a 22 lb bass.  So your time would probably be better managed to take that 22 lb bass and get on with finding some other species. Ultimately this type of scoring format benefits those spearfisherman who are all around great hunters, which is the purpose of the tournament... a chance for the areas spearos and spearas to showcase their skills. Due to this unique scoring format, great prizes, fun venue and awesome spearfishing community... this event has grow into the success that it is.

First lets start with a heavy back pat for the Tristate Skindivers Club which except members to cover every state in New England + New York. The founding members of 3SSD had a vision to start a true non profit spearfishing club and find worthy causes to donate funds raised to that they raise each season, and give something back to the community. Each year they select a great benefit to donate the money raised from this event to. This season 2016 they selected to donate all the funds raised to Dana-Farber Cancer Research , what an incredibly worthy cause to help out. So in addition to donating the funds, they collected fish donated from competitors that day to cater another fund raiser for Dana-Farber which they were catering on August 20th.  That is a whole lot of work and an incredible amount of heart. Do not worry, if you could not attend this meet and still want to help out You Can Make a Donation Directly To Dana-Farber Here ! I am sure Tristate thanks you in advance for your donation.

Second, lets check out the t-shirt that is given to each competitor as part of their $35 entry fee. It has become a tradition each year for 3SSD to offer a cool and different t-shirt for this event and this season they were blessed with an incredible piece of artwork from the one and only Caleb Goins . His artwork of the striped bass was perfect for this years shirt !

Third, there is the sponsors who provide prizes for the competitors. New England Freedive Spearfishing Co and many others including HammerHead Spearguns and Crist Spears, Omer, Mako, Dip and Dive, SporTube make it possible for each competitor to win a prize in the free gear raffle after the weigh in. As a sponsor, NEF loves being involved with this event not only for the fun and feel good fund raising effort, but it also allows us to showcase some products we donate to get them in front of spearfisherman on the prize tables. I usually spend the afternoon answering questions about the gear I have donated which always seems to bring a big interest. If you should have an interest in becoming a sponsor for next year's 2017 Species Meet, please contact Tristate Skindivers Club via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TristateSkindiversSpearfishingClub/?fref=ts
or via EMAIL LINK HERE 

Fourth, the Bon Vue Inn in their generosity provide the perfect outdoor venue to host the weigh in. Competitors and their guests get to enjoy some fun drinks and great food during the gathering. Shout out to our favorite server - always smiling, sometimes cart wheeling "Tracey", who has worked every event 3SSD has hosted their and made sure it was a success.

Finally the review of the competition ! Well the winds were blowing a little in the morning and turning up some mid size seas in most SW facing areas of Rhode Island with expectations of showers in the afternoon. Those that ventured out to Block Island in search of their big bass had an interesting day battling rolling seas, but the fish were there, and those that went out got their big bass and multiple species. For those that shore and or kayak dived, we had similar conditions. Where we were not battling bigger swells most areas had little visibility to hunt fish in due to the winds. The area in Point Judith where my dive buddy and I hunted seemed to have the bigger seas but also hunt-able visibility, which was a pleasant surprise. I managed to harvest 2 species a tautog and a scup to weigh in but i could not find a shoot-able size bass and black sea bass before i finally decided I had had enough of rolling in the big seas in the kayak and decided to head to the weigh in and get ready. It was 5:00 somewhere and I knew exactly where.

65 competitors weighed in in 2 categories Boat or Shore/Kayak. As usual some impressive fish hit the scales with the variety consisting of striped bass, tautog, black sea bass, scup, bluefish, trigger fish and fluke. Below is a list of the top three divers in each category. 

 Overall high scores/ winner

1. Ricardo Cruelles. 5 fish; 93 points.
2. Kelly Gillette. 5 fish; 91 points
3. Kenneth Julian Martín. 5 fish; 81 points.

Kayak / shore:
1. Bobby Morin, 2 fish 28 points
2. Garrick G., 2 fish 27 points
3. Ed Wormold, 2 fish, 26.5 points

Congratulations to the top diver in the shore/kayak category Bobby Morin who beat out the rest of us who only weighed in 2 species in this category, but his 2 were bigger... well done Bobby !

Congratulations to NEF Team Diver Ricardo Cruelles (@rcruelles) who won the boat category with an impressive stringer which included a striped bass, 11 lb tautog, blue fish, black sea bass and a trigger I was very excited for Ricardo because I know how much work he puts into competing in this event each year with multiple scouting efforts. He prides himself to represent my NEF Shop well in events he competes in and when someone puts that much heart into their work, it is twice as exciting to see him get the win. SHAKA.

After the weigh in and winners are decided it is time for Tristate to run their famous gear raffle. It is always great to see divers get a chance to win a piece of gear they may have needed. There always seems to be plenty of prizes to allow every competitor to win something.

When it is all said and done, for me it is the camaraderie of the gathering at these events that I look forward to the most. A chance to see spearos and spearas from outside the area I may only be lucky enough to see once a year at this event. Dive stories and laughs are traded over a cold beverage or two and plans are made to get together for future dives. New England is truly blessed with one of the best spearfishing communities anywhere.

Watch the Tristate Skindivers Club Facebook Page for next years event if you would like to compete.

 Credit to Stephanie Young for some of these great images.

Thank You to ALL who make this possible.
Give thanks to mother ocean for bringing us all together and watching over us for another day.

Dive Safe and be Good to Each Other,
Tog Cult

July 27, 2016 Block Island Spearfishing Report - Ricardo Cruelles

Date: 7/27/2016
Location: Block Island, RI
Report Contributor: Ricardo Cruelles

Well, at last, the Island is finally firing on all cylinders! With water temps getting close to 70 degrees, inshore the summer fishery is now in full swing. The drifts inshore are very productive, multiple specie catches are very possible, and making for excellent target practice with schools of scup, blue fish, fluke and plenty of bass up to 35lbs.

The offshore grounds are very lively as well, with plenty of sea bass of considerable size and striped bass in big schools. Visibility is spotty but good enough for us New England divers. Water offshore is a very comfortable 64 degrees at 50ft, water higher in the water column.

If you can get on a boat and get out there, I would recommend the middle of the week, if you can swing it, as the weekend boat traffic in the fishing grounds is heavy. If boat is not an option but you still want to get into the Island action, there are plenty of possibilities for some excellent shore or kayak dives, just beware of tide times and wind/swell conditions.

Happy Hunting folks!
Ricardo Cruelles

7-23-2016 Narragansett Bay Report - Ricardo Cruelles

Date: 7-23-2016 
Location: Narragansett Bay
Report Contributor: Ricardo Cruelles


Well… If you like diving in chocolate milk, we have your ticket! We set out to find a couple of bass on Saturday in the bay, since the wind report out front did not look so appealing. We tried a few of the “old faithful” spots, the viz somewhere around 2ft and with the incoming tide it made the dives very challenging. The spots were loaded with big scup, which were rather hard to get a good shot on in the murky water, we did manage a few nice ones for dinner. I did see about a half a dozen bass to about 28”, nothing really big enough to shoot. Also many good size blackfish came by to check us out and laugh at us, since they are still closed for another week.

After a few hours and a few spots we decided that diving for a few clams would be more productive, we made a spot for about 30 minutes and got our limit of quahogs.

I would recommend trying some inshore spots outside of the bay to try to chase down some better viz as long as the wind stays down.

Good luck and good fishing!
Ricardo Cruelles