Captains Corner, Bill Hardman

The Tampa Bay Times

Off-shore spearfishermen are excited that one of the 2023 closed grouper seasons is now open.  It was difficult for most fishermen and spearfishermen to harvest any grouper species once red grouper and gag grouper were closed early in 2023.  Red grouper is now open and some of our divers have already ventured out to the 100’ area looking for red grouper in their potholes.  Scamp grouper season is open and the lucky red grouper hunter may run across some scamp grouper that are big enough to take.  Scamp is one of the best tasting of the groupers but they run on the small side.  A scamp grouper must be at least 16 inches total length to be legally harvested. It is hard to find scamps over 16 inches unless the diver is in depths exceeding 80’.  So along with the reef fish of red grouper, scamp grouper, mangrove snapper and the always dependable hogfish, divers are finding cobia on many of the wrecks and ledges.  On the few days that have held nice weather since the new year, some healthy cobia have been speared that weigh-in at 40 pounds.  Cubera snapper have started showing up on some of the wrecks.  Some years there are more cubera snappers than other years and maybe this is the start of a cubera year.  One of the speared cubera snappers from this past week was speared in 100” and weighed in over 80 pounds. 

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 CaptainBillHardman@gmail.com