Here is a video of the dive at r7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceVYmJRXlTw
I have been diving all the artificial wrecks for a while now 30-100ft and my buddies are gonna make the trip to the snapper banks for some live bottom. We always have an anchor line and its pretty easy to find the structure and stay together. My question is how do you guys dive the snapper banks? Do you drift dive or anchor? I have a lot of experience drift diving in south florida, any similarity? Any suggestions or advice is very welcome.
Thanks
We drift dive, others anchor. It’s really about what you are comfortable with. I don’t think it’s that similar to South Florida. From my experience, in SF, you cover as much ground as you can. In SC, you pick a spot and work it. Most of our reefs are small patch reefs, ledges, etc. Other than the “big ledge”, we don’t have the 100 mile long stretch of contiguous bottom like you have in FL.
Drift dive. Drop marker bouy over interesting bottom. Follow bouy to bottom. Follow fish where they take you. Ascend to deco stop. Complete deco obligation. Surface. Get picked up by boat. Move spots and do it again. Enjoy.
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
Well we made it out on Thursday. Flat calm got to r7 in an hour. Dove solo to check out the tower, nothing to spear so went out to snapper banks. Finally found some interesting bottom and threw out the marker. Dove on a bunch of small live bottom patches all around. No high relief for big fish to hide. Saw lots of endangered red snapper, lionfish and got 1 huge lobster.
Is this typical or are there higher structure. We dove in 100ft. The reef reminded me of the 1st reef off the beach in ft lauderdale. I drove
round looking for better bottom but never saw anything higher than what we dove on.
We decided no more diving and switched to bottom fishing and I’ll just say it was awesome! I’ll let the captain of the boat give the report.
I used my new gopro on the r7 dive which i posted on youtube if anyone wants to watch. I had huge schools of big amberjack follow me around and plenty of baracuda and spadefish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceVYmJRXlTw
There is higher relief. It’s everywhere out there, you just have to spend some time looking for it. There is some relief in 100’ FSW that’s 20’ or better. Then, obviously, as you get closer to the break, the relief starts getting big. But don’t confuse that with fish. Some of the most productive spots are little rocks in the desert. Or a little patch reef with nothing else around. What I find, especially in the summer months is that the fish are REALLY spread-out over the big structure and they’re hard to find. Sounds like you gave up the diving too early and went back to rods/reels. If you caught them so good with R&R, you should’ve switched back to spearing. You found a spot that’s holding good fish. Now dive it.
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
Also, there was a good Almaco at 1:38 or so. They’re good eating.
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
We pushed out a little further to fish on the bottom. It was too deep to dive.
About two miles or so inshore of the Y-73 reef is an area known as the “Gardens” fairly large area, listed on the charts, no secrets here, that has various size relief with a good many fish. Water depth generally is 90-100 feet. Spend a little time with your depth recorder running and you will be rewarded.
We initially hit the tower hoping for some cobes so moved on after 15 mins. We left in the afternoon and went out for a 24 hour trip. Had 12 tanks with us so we were expecting at least two dives on thursday and 2 on friday on the way in. It was starting to get dark and it was 6 miles to some numbers i wanted to hit so we decided to move out for bottom fishing. Here is the bug
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“We pushed out a little further to fish on the bottom. It was too deep to dive.”
How deep is too deep?
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
quote:
Originally posted by yellabird
How deep is too deep?
They must have been talking about your #'s yellabird :smiley:
Just curious for future use. Thinking about a deep trip soon and wondering where the fish are.
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
How’d you like the Hard thermo at about 55’? Holy crap it got cold!
“CatHouse”
www.rossturpin.com
That thing looks like a mini oil rig… Where are all of the yellowfin tuna?
I’m fairly confident that the R7 is only in about 85’, thus, the lack of tuna. Put that bad boy at the Georgetown Hole and we have a different story. Always stirring the pot aren’t we 
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
My understanding is that IF rigs came to SC, that MOST of them would be LESS THAN 150’ of water. Is that correct? I thought I heard 10-30 miles out or something along those lines. I have no problem with them being out in the Gulfstream. I just don’t want to see them in anything less than 600’.
It’s not stirring the pot. I just want people to understand the FULL story, not just the best case scenario.
I said on the other thread that the shallow oil rigs woudl be havens for amberjacks, barracudas, and spadefish. This video seems to support what I am saying…
It was 85ft deep and actually there was no thermocline at the tower. On the other hand 4 miles further at the snapper banks in 100 foot depth there was a definite thermocline that was at least 10 degrees colder at 50 feet. I was surprised at all the Lionfish, in a 20 minute dive, i must have counted 10 all different sizes.
Jason,
The current bill gives strict permitting processes for rigs from 10-50 miles but opens the leases beyond 50 miles. In other words, most if not all rigs will be beyond 50 miles.
HHI: on lionfish- I personally counted over 300 on a very small wreck in 155’ two weeks ago. They have literally taken over some pieces of bottom. We’re hosting a lion fish rodeo here in Murrells Inlet on Oct 26 and 27 in conjunction with the spearing tournament.
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
Based on the bottom fish we caught there is obviously an abundance of bait available to go round… I wonder if these are on the dinner table when live? I know first hand that the second you kill them the snapper and grouper dont hesitate to suck em down at least in the bahamas.
quote:
Originally posted by yellabird
Just curious for future use. Thinking about a deep trip soon and wondering where the fish are.
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
Deep er ish does that help?
