Captain’s Corner: Bill Hardman

The Tampa Bay Times

Good offshore weather is the call for this weekend, as it was, last week.  While the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is calming from the powerful winds of late October and early November, accompanied by the dropping water temperatures, our success at finding bottom fish has improved.  Keeper size red grouper were harder to find in depths shallower than 80 feet of water through most of the summer, but they are now more concentrated in depths of 60’ and less.  Gag grouper are a little more sluggish as the water cools down and that helps the spearfisherman to get a fraction of a better chance to get off a successful shot. The warmer summer gags are much quicker to evade the hunter. Groupers are demersal fish. Demersal fish live and feed on or near the bottom, in the demersal zone.  Some of these fish move long distances while migrating for breeding, but mostly they stay in their relative area, but will move a little to follow their food sources.  In contrast, the pelagic fish species live and feed up from the bottom, in the open water column.  Most of the pelagic fish, such as cobia, are moving south from our area.  There still are some cobia in our area, but most are on the smaller side.  Last week, we had a substantial amount of our divers be effective at harvesting some of these fish. 

Capt. Bill Hardman teaches scuba classes and runs trips for Scuba, Spearfishing, Freediving and Technical diving courses at Aquatic Obsessions, 6193 Central Avenue, St. Petersburg, FL  33710.  You can reach Capt. Hardman at (727) 344-3483 (DIVE) or info@aodive.com