Tuesday, July 17, 2012

My Big Fish Story, By Noah Acevedo

                                                    My Big fish story


Yesterday was a great day at the islands. I was with my dad, and are friends Jeff, and Scott. The ocean was very calm on the way to the islands. When we got there I waited for everyone to get in the water before I suited up. 15 to 20 minutes later Scott told me a school of yellowtail swam by and he shot the biggest one but his float line was sinking and the yellowtail took the shaft and the line. We spent a while looking for the float. Jeff was using a pair of gyro Binoculars and spotted it , so Scott dove in and got it back, unfortunately the fish was gone.

After that, things got really slow so we decided to go offshore to look for paddies. We went out 30 miles to no avail. So we decided to go back to the islands to load up on some calicos for our ceviche lunch. My dad and I went a little off the island hoping to see some yellowtail. We were swimming for 10 min when I spotted a school of yellow tail. I picked out the one in the middle and shot at it. The shaft hit the fish but it did not penetrate enough to hold. I later realized that happened because I had it on the loading tab to shoot calicos in the rocky areas.

After that we headed back to the island. I practiced my diving and looked for calicos and sheepshead but I couldn’t find any big enough After a while of doing that my dad and I started heading back to the area we saw the yellowtail. Just as we passed the pinnacle I looked down and I saw a school of six HUGE black sea bass in a snake formation. I squeezed my dads hand waiting for his nod of approval. The second he shook his head up and down I made a quick dive towards the massive beasts. I got down to about thirty feet and picked the one in the back of the line and shot it behind the head. At first it looked like I stoned it but then when I surfaced my little co2 float was out of sight. My dad spotted it and we swam as fast as we could to get to it. Trying to swim to it was no use. We looked up and saw the float zip right by a small center console. The two fisherman inside were amazed at how fast the float was gliding across the water. They asked us what we shot and offered to take us to our float. We accepted the offer with out hesitation. When we were putting extra floats on the line, the kind fisherman had our back the whole time. We put the guns inside the boat and pulled the monster to where we could gaff it. When we got to the boat we realized the fish was to heavy to get into the boat , so we filleted the fish and stuck the fillets in the kill bag. The fillets were so heavy it took two men to get them in the kill bag , on are way home we stopped at are Friend and Mentor Bill Wagner’s house , we told him the story and shared some meat with him , he is one of my spear fishing heroes so this was the highlight of the day for me , I know that I will remember that day as long as I live.





Wednesday, March 7, 2012

OMER Zero 3 mask review

I wanted to share another unbiased review of a new dive mask with the readers of the Underground Waterman. The reviewed mask is the OMER Zero , I was skeptical about purchasing another ultra low profile dive mask, because they always seem to be lacking any sort of peripheral vision and would always give me a sense of Closter phobia underwater , but that changed the second I put the mask on at my local dive shop , the amount peripheral vision this mask provides is simply amazing ,OMER states that its 30% more vision then the OMER alien mask. This is the first ultra low volume mask I have ever seen that is suitable for hunting .






How this state of the art Mask came to be
The head of Omer's technical department Marco Mariani is behind the Omer side of the design.
The other half of the design was Italian design powerhouse MOMO , this is the first of a kind for this type of collaboration between a major spearfishing company and an automotive performance design specialty house.



The shape, when they designed this unique shape they did away with the typical “Brow Bridge”
(See attached photo for reference) I have noticed on my other low volume mask OMER abyss , sporasub mystic etc , at depth the brow of the mask would always seem to Dig into my forehead creating uncomfortable pressure.




The Ridges
in the nose area of the mask were designed to break the glare of the sun, but it will also provide traction for those who cant equalize hands free..

The strap is connected by a nice buckle that swivels up and down 60 degrees to insure perfect fit.

 

Technical Data, the total weight of this mask is 126 grams , Internal volume of the mask (tested by Omer using their method) was reported an unprecedented internal volume of 95m1,the Lens is tempered glass for clear undistorted vision






 

Final thoughts,
the amount of thought that went into every detail is simply amazing, its just another example of OMER thinking outside of the box and constantly setting the standard on freediving gear , I love the direction Marco Mariani and Marco Bardi are taking this company ,with cutting edge products like the Slolum snorkel , 3D Wetsuit , Airbalete ,Cayman E.T speargun and now the Momo Zero Mask . I strongly recommend you head into your local dive shop and try this mask on , I don’t think I can go back to wearing anything else