It's been awhile since the dream team of Carey and Ken have made any posts. This is because we were busy perfecting our pole spearing technique and our fish calling skills to bring the fish within pole spear range. This is a slightly older picture of Carey with a nice 8 pound Taman she speared near Ikei Island. The rest of the pictures are newer.

Saddleback Grouper and Peacock Grouper

Many Spotted Sweetlips

Just another day of pole spearing!

Today Ken and Carey went to the highly overrated Kouri Island in search of some willing targets for our new polespears. It looked as if we were headed toward a skunking when the fish bell suddenly rang. No real monsters to speak of, but the selection was nice and we even managed to persuade a cuttlefish to climb onto our poles! It was a nice day and we came home with fish for everyone. Hopefully we are ready to spear some bigger fish with our slip tip polespears now!!

Went to Kouri Island today with Kevin. It got a little rough after a storm passed through but I still managed to get my largest fish to date, a 10 pound 8 ounce Taman.

Here are some pictures from our last few outings. Using "Pole Spears" of course!

We decided to go and check out the East side after the tournament got canceled due to bad weather. Saw a lot of Parrots and a couple of Coral Trout. On the way in I saw a Napoleon but couldn't take a shot due to the currents getting stronger. He stays right at the foot of the island behind me.
Something for the table. Last weekend's catch, Sweet and sour Coral Trout :)

He's just a little guy! ( The Grouper)

Saturday the guru Paul Smith decided to go out by himself somewhere South of Bolo Point and North of Torri Station for some soul fishing. I think the pictures speak for themselves on the result of this solo expedition. Next time invite your friends from the Okinawan Spearfishing Club, stingy Paul! This Brown-Spotted Mottled Grouper weighed in at 40 pounds, by the way, and has been submitted for a potential world record for this species. Paul shot this with his new 120 Riffe Euro and Sporasub reel combo. The fish holed up after it was shot and Paul made a dive to 60 feet to subdue the fish. We are not worthy.....

Take the friggin' picture, will ya? This is heavy!!

Insert coins here

This is a late post, but last Tuesday Carey and Ken went out for a short afternoon spearfishing session and did pretty well despite not seeing a whole mess of fish. The weather was good and visibility was mostly great, Carey managed to bag a species not caught before by the club members, a painted grouper or "moontail" as the Okinawans call it. Ken speared a 13 pund Coral Trout, which may have been a world record according to Paul Smith, but Ken and Carey ate the evidence, although Mike was witness to the beauty of the monster trout. Oh well, there are more out there, and we will find them!!!

Carey with Coral Trout and Painted Grouper
Ken with 13 pound Coral Trout

World Record? We will never know for sure....

Doug and I went to Kin Blue Sun morning. The east side was blown out, but Kin Blue is relatively protected and had pretty good conditions. The trevally was taken after about 30 seconds after entering and I passed on taking another of the same size. The big disappointment was missing the chance at two very large tuskfish..

Blue Water!
Carey, Ken and myself went on our first blue water spear fishing trip today along with local gurus Paul Smith and Ben. The weather was beautiful and the water had only small to medium swells. We ventured a few miles off shore to a large bouy (FAD). Upon entering the water mahi and rainbow runners greeted us. Everyone quickly got a mahi on board. Finally tally included mahi, wahoo, rainbow runners, and a lonesome small yellow-fin tuna. Ken, as always had the spear gods good fortune, and got the largest mahi (16lbs), wahoo (22lbs), and rainbow runner. This is a must repeat trip!

The catch (not including Paul's and Ben's fish)

Fish blessed Ken.

Ken's GT
Ken went out today with Paul Smith up by Nago (so they say) and he came home with his first Giant Trevally, among other fish. Good Job!

Press the "play" button and watch Cakes swim around looking for fish and finally hit and lose a nice yellow tailed fusilier. Better luck next time.

Press the "play" button to watch another parrot fish head to the great dinner plate in the sky.

6 pound Coral Trout

Carey and Ken played hookey from work on Thursday morning and went up north of Okuma on the West side of the island to do a little fishing. The visibility was poor all morning, and very few fish were seen, although turtles and eagle rays were popping up everywhere. Ken drifted off of the main reef and ended up over a lone set of coral bommies over the sand, and initially targeted a nice sized parrot fish at 35 feet. Ken had the sneaking suspicion something was watching him, and sure enough, when he turned around mid water, this curious coral trout was checking out his flasher. Ken took aim with his Comp4X and got a nice stone shot on the fish. No fight from the fish at all.

Chef Carey takes over!

Following Doug's recent abysmal outing up north, I sense that he's been feeling a bit dejected and, perhaps, even like somewhat of a loser. I thought we might raise his spirits by posting the old classic pic entitled "Doug and his mullet.".... those were the days, eh Doug? - hang in there Fresh!

Paul Smith with a 25lb grouper, taken at 67 feet. Nice job!!

Trevally At Last!

Today was a Labor Day outing. Kevin, Doug, and I left EARLY and headed north to an unnamed spot or aka "Ken's Spot". We were in the water by 0615 and we swam out about 200 yards to the drop-off. Immediately I was cut off by 30-40 spotted trevally and I quickly got a shot at one and hit it solidly. Kevin was right behind me and shot a larger member of the group not 5 sec afterwards. They put up a good fight but they were not going anywhere. Doug of course, was way behind and completely missed the action. I ended up getting another 4 fish (a large sweet lips, 2 larger gray drummer and a small peacock grouper) and Kevin shot another 2 fish (a parrot fish and gray drummer). Doug, sadly, was blanked for today and went home empty handed. Although not for Doug, I have to say today was an excellent day!

Trevally twins!

My first trevally.

The catch.

Kevin and his prize.

The larger fish.

Very calm water that night in Maeda Flats. Saw this big Tusk fish about (19 lbs) in a hole and took a shot right when he was about to swim out. I also caught a cuttle fish (7 lbs) and an octopus (7.9 lbs) that almost bent my shaft, a good size bump head ( 6 lbs), and a couple of lobsters.

Tuskfish from Sunabe seawall. It's the third day in a row there for me to ge there - too convenient to do a lunchtime "workout" in the water. On Sunday, I saw a pair of "fishzilla" Tamans that I'd estimate to be 10+lbs each, reminiscent of the one Ken shot there several months ago. I'll be back..

Hoffman forgot to post this pic of himself.

Hedo Point
Made the trek north to Hedo Point for the first time today. Tim and I had heard stories about this location and we were excited to give it a try. We drove up along the west coast and the ocean was flat like a lake all the way up until we hit the point. There, we could see the swells rolling in and 3-4 ft waves crashing on the reef. Beyond the waves you could see coral fingers extending outward in clear water. We had to climb down a cliff face to reach the water and then swim under the waves ti deeper water. Once in I could see why people talked about this spot with so much excitement. We were immediately greeted by a pair of sea turtles and there were schools of fish everywhere. We saw the some of the biggest parrot fish we ever seen. There were coral trout at about 50 ft that were larger than anything I had ever seen. We got some good sized parrot fish and I shot a nice coral trout. If we could hit 50ft comfortably, we probably could have had some large coral trout. We were only in the water for about 2 hrs because we became concerned with the exit through the waves as the tide was rising. Getting out was an adventure and I lost my brand new Riffe knife in the surf. This was Tim's last Okinawa spearfishing adventure since he is leaving us next week for Camp Pendleton. This was a nice way to finish.

View from the top.

My harvest. Ceviche tonight!

Tim finally made the blog on the last try!

4 blue parrots, 2 red parrots, and a coral trout.

Here's the lobster camping trip catch. Total of 16 lobsters, the unlucky ones we had for breakfast didn't make it home for the pictures. It started out as a bad night, I almost lost my brand new float but lobsters started coming out around 10 p.m. Missed a big bumphead sleeping in hole when a wave pulled my float taking my aim off the big fish, but overall it was a good night.

Caitlyn's fish slowly getting bigger!

We love the coral trout!

6lb 11oz bump-head parrotfish!

blunt head parrot fish and green wrasse

Four good parrot fish for Caitlyn

Peacock Coral Trout from Oura Wan

Older picture of Coral Trout but still blog worthy!

Here are a few pictures from the last month or so of Ken, Carey and Caitlyn's spearfishing adventures. There has been some good fishing, and good eating, as the pictures can attest. Most notably in the bunch is Carey's most recent capture of a 6lb. 11oz bumphead parrotfish taken near Okuma Bay. Caitlyn is also coming up the ranks quite nicely and getting bigger fish with each hunt. Her record stands at about a 1lb 5oz parrotfish, but we have outfitted her with a slightly bigger gun which hopefully will bring her some better range. We hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we enjoyed the fishing!!

Preparing for dinner

It's been awhile since I posted on the blog, but I got a couple of nice lobster as a reward from the ocean gods for swimming my butt off for 3 hours in the middle of the night and these 2 bugs were caught at the tail end of the 3 hour swim. Probably too much work for 2 lobsters, but that was enough for two people!!

Dinner is served!

This weekends catch. Really nice weather and calm seas. Caught this with Ken off a beach past Camp Schwab (Don't know the name). We saw lots of turtles that day, a good size sweet lips and a Giant Trevally about 15 ft to our right. It was checking us out. I still don't know why we didn't take a shot at the GT. We just stared at it as it cruised pass us. Hopefully we see him again next time and next time we won't hesitate to shoot. :)

BEFORE

AFTER

Kevin and I went out to Ikei Island for the first time last weekend. We tried to go off the reef at Big Time Resort but were turned off by the guard at the entrance. We therefore headed to the bridge and tried underneath. No much there except a nice lobster that I shot out in the open. On the way back we hit a site on the side of the road that was shallow and murky but Kevin still got a good sized fish. We will have to try the reef again someday with some who has been there before.

Lobster on the barby tonight!

Fish tacos.

Sapo strikes again.. Nice 2.5lb coral trout taken at Kadena steps in very low vis, Sun afternoon with Tim. Nice work

Caught this nice Golden Rabbit fish 2 days ago. In the process I got my shaft stuck in the reef and Tim and I tried to free it for 30 minutes with no success. I took a mental note of the approximate location and returned the next day with a hammer and screwdriver and was able to free it after about 10 dives. This fish almost cost me $60 but I got the last laugh. Incidentally, we have been seeing a lot of these fish recently and some much larger than this one. Might have to get a color print of this pretty fish.

Got the fish but lost the spear (momentarily)!

3 Rabbitfish taken from Junkyard this morning. Largest is 3lbs 10oz. The big "catch" of the day, though, was getting Sapo's (Mike) spear back that was stuck in the coral yesterday when he shot a record 3oz Damselfish (kidding, it was a 2lb 8oz Rabbitfish - by the way, the middle Rabbitfish in the pick is 2lb 10oz, still bigger than Sapo's)..