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This report will be a little different from
previous ones in that I will not give a dive
site by dive site report, but a general
overview of what we did and saw on this
trip. The object of the mission was to find
and identify a certain aggregation of Mutton
Snapper that spawn on the July full moon on
Riley’s Hump, an otherwise closed area of
the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
And when I say closed, I mean closed. You
must keep your vessel in transit the entire
time you are within the boundaries of this
sanctuary. We had a permit (in writing, this
time), and so were allowed to dive. The
charter was made up of a group of fisheries
scientists from the Beaufort, NC NMFS lab,
as well as a smattering from FWC, University
of Miami (go ‘Canes), and the Miami NMFS
lab.
Riley’s hump is made up of hard bottom
briskly washed by the gulf stream, so
nothing grows very tall there. There were
some sponges and gorgonians, but is mostly
what I call crusty bottom. The Mutton
Snapper seem to like it, because they were
there for a little fish orgy, and having a
really good time of it. They seem to spawn
about 5 PM, and are really active for an
hour before and after. They swim in a
whirlpool-shaped vortex and rise towards the
surface in this spinning motion. They are
easily distracted, and don’t particularly
like divers observing them.
The other benefits to being a closed area
are the very large grouper present on the
reef. Gags, yellowmouth, blacks, scamp,
goliath and reds were the major big fish,
and the “cute” fish of the trip was
Sargassum Triggerfish, which are very rare,
and are likely to be seen in only a few
places in the Caribbean.
It was a great trip as far as weather
goes, we maybe saw a ripple one day. The
rest of the time it was flat smooth. I guess
we gotta come home to Texas weather
sometime, but I could be convinced to stay
in Florida a lot longer.
Capt. Frank
M/V Spree
Stock Island, FL
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