ricki
06-27-2011, 08:23 AM
Good news, went out to the reef I grew up diving on off Ft. Lauderdale yesterday, covering about 3/4 of a mile of it and only saw one lionfish. I was free diving but did drop down to look under most ledges and heads that I saw. Also, the general health of the hard corals, those that were still alive, seemed to be pretty good. That is more so than normal over the last ten or so years. Warmer water may be helping despite ongoing turbid and other water quality issues, who knows.
I shot the lionfish I saw. There was a five foot nurse shark within about ten feet away. I had heard that sharks are reluctant to take speared lionfish. In this case, the nurse ignored the process and eventually left the area. It was a small lionfish which did no struggling so perhaps it just didn't draw attention. I wanted to try to feed it to the nurse but it decamped.
This contrasted with a hog I shot here very close to this same spot at 15 years of age. The fish was struggling on the spear until a nurse shark that I hadn't noticed came up and grabbed it off the spear. Lots of nurse sharks on the first reef although they are usually easy to ignore. You would think the shark would show some interest at least until it identified the fish as not being on its menu. Not this time.
I quit spearfishing that same year in 1972 concluding the resource was diminishing and taking out snapper and grouper wasn't good for the health of the reef and stocks in general. Nailing lionfish is a departure for me, hopefully it will do some good.
http://www.fksa.org/albums/album292/Lionfish_1_s.jpg
I shot the lionfish I saw. There was a five foot nurse shark within about ten feet away. I had heard that sharks are reluctant to take speared lionfish. In this case, the nurse ignored the process and eventually left the area. It was a small lionfish which did no struggling so perhaps it just didn't draw attention. I wanted to try to feed it to the nurse but it decamped.
This contrasted with a hog I shot here very close to this same spot at 15 years of age. The fish was struggling on the spear until a nurse shark that I hadn't noticed came up and grabbed it off the spear. Lots of nurse sharks on the first reef although they are usually easy to ignore. You would think the shark would show some interest at least until it identified the fish as not being on its menu. Not this time.
I quit spearfishing that same year in 1972 concluding the resource was diminishing and taking out snapper and grouper wasn't good for the health of the reef and stocks in general. Nailing lionfish is a departure for me, hopefully it will do some good.
http://www.fksa.org/albums/album292/Lionfish_1_s.jpg