A Good Way to Lose a Finger | Commercial Spearfishing | Profit Breakdown $$$

[Applause] [Music] how's it going boys and girls welcome back to us waterman good morning boys and girls welcome back to cuba's waterman my name is aaron young um first and foremost i know it's so annoying but if it's your first time watching be sure to subscribe if you enjoy the channel and you enjoy the videos please hit the like button i know it's annoying but the more you do that the more time i can spend making these videos the more times you hit like the more this video gets out the more money it makes the more time i can take off charters more videos you guys get to watch so there's the end of my speech um today plan on doing some commercial diving i haven't done this in quite some time i know a lot of you guys like this this is one of the most frequently requested trips um or videos that i make um i haven't been doing it a whole lot i've been so busy with charters but quite frankly i've had four charters cancel this week and i need a paycheck so gonna get out there me and my buddy justin are gonna head out and try and do some commercial diving the market needs grouper um so we're gonna go out and try and look for some groupers and snappers and whatever else swims by waiting for some of this rain to pass and gonna head down to the boat i will see you there let's rock and roll [Music] we go all right so we are on the first spot um but this is your first time watching what i'm doing today commercial spear fishing i'm harvesting fish to give to the mark sell to the market market sells it to the restaurant goes to a lot of hands keeps a lot of people working if this is your first time watching my full-time job as a charter captain i prefer to do that because i have to take a lot less fish to be profitable if that makes sense on a charter day two or three groupers is a great day commercial day i need eight to ten to make some money but um as i said earlier i've had four charters cancelled this week so i need a paycheck and i've been diving in a while but we're on the first spot um 65 feet ish that's a nice life on the bottom this is pretty much just a roll-off it starts in like 40 goes down to about 70 just on the face um kind of a swiss cheesy type bottom got my good friend justin with me i can't remember if i said that but um we're shooting up we're going to hop in let's check it out so welcome back underwater boys and girls i'm going to share my thoughts on some of these dives there's actually a ton of dives in this um episode so a lot of cool situations some stuff to talk about i will share what i'm thinking as we go along so water was kind of murky um for key west standards but it goes back and forth i mean definitely diveable i'll take this all day some days it's crystal clear some days it's five foot of fizz but um as far as grouper hunting goes which is normally our main target because they pulled the best price as far as grouper hunting goes this viz was incredible i'll take it but a lot of your local key west people would call this murky i'm kind of doing my first drop here just scanning not a lot not a lot going on to be honest with you normally i'm kind of picky but i didn't see a single grouper and unfortunately for this mutton he was the only one kind of cruising around he's trying to be patient until he gets a little more broadside to me i see a lot of people take rough shots and the fish kind of swimming away at an angle it's a very tough shot to make and a lot of times you're going to get more meat than anything any the reason we harvest these fish is to eat them so try not to ruin the meat if we can and i always dispatch bleed and gut every fish for quality standards a lot of you someone asked about that the other day it's for meat quality and i actually had a camera on justin this day and i can't talk anyone into filming but justin put a camera on this is his very first drop of the day same spot this is great grouper bottom i just kind of random that there weren't any there um well black groupers anyways this is a nice red coming up he's kind of scanning around to see if there's anything else because the red will normally kind of hang out but they love this and this is what i call swiss cheese bottom it's kind of thick rock but lots of potholes and cracks and and caves to hide in they love that kind of stuff justin kind of doing the same technique i do let his gun get away from him so he's not dealing with that line going with that line getting wrapped around yet anyway there we go take it not a bad start um something else i've had a few people ask about is breathing techniques and stuff like that um a video they one want to be made quite honestly i'm not a free dive instructor i'm self-taught not super comfortable sharing that kind of stuff because i'm not properly trained quote unquote but if you pay attention to some of my breathing you'll hear majority of the time i'm on the surface i'm just trying to be super mellow relax every muscle in my body um and my inhales are half the length of my exhales i like to breathe in deep by exhale nice and slow try to be at least twice as long i feel like that calms me down calms me down a lot better brings my heart rate down nice mutton being patient could have shot him a little earlier there again that would have been a rush shot kind of heading away wait till he turned broadside and gave me the perfect stone shot if it were up to me i'd stone every fish that i i shot at but unfortunately i'm not that good i always let go of my gun if i can depending on how i'm fighting the fish i'm running out of air i normally drag the fish but i've got plenty of time get that gun away from me so i'm not dealing with that line ah to the next so we moved out to check a wreck um most of the wrecks down here are hit pretty frequently unless you've got some secret ones uh but most of the shallower ones are hit pretty often but if you sometimes if you hit them early or late in the afternoon they'll hold some fish they just get a lot of scuba divers and stuff like that doing a drop kind of scanning you can look straight below me there's a very healthy black grouper there kind of taken off midscreen unfortunately did not stop it just kept going that thing was conservatively 25 20 25 pounds maybe 30. try not to throw too many numbers around but i've seen enough fish to know that thing was beefy and uh this guy comes up kind of checks me out i hate this unicorn shot i've talked about it before a lot of times you're gonna miss or run the shaft right down the fillet so i wait till he flicks i know he's gonna whether or not it's gonna be fast or slow luckily it was a slow flick unfortunate or fortunately for me and gave me the broadside shot there another stone shot love those i've got justin looking out here a lot of times on these wrecks you'll have predators sharks or goliaths that'll come down or sneak up on you on your way up and switched over to justin's cam he went down just to secure this thing make sure nothing was coming up on me i've had goliath groupers eat 25 30 pound groupers before and it is not a good feeling thank you sir i spooked a 30. yeah he went he went up to the bow he was big yeah i'll take him bigger than i thought he was there was two like this and there was one big one again i bleed and gut everything especially on commercial sometimes not commercial i just bleed them it improves the meat quality in my opinion so here's justin's dive drop similar to me um i need to film some entries sometimes i think that's a lot of issues i see with people's diving efficiency as their entry is kind of sloppy and use your momentum do a couple flutter kicks use your momentum and roll down into the water um this is justin's first drop on the wreck kind of scanning around typically on these wrecks like i said they're hit so much normally the person with the first drop has the best opportunity for a grouper because they normally take off and go out into the deep water nice dog snapper he waited he was patient biggest key with these is or wreck hunting is getting the fish out of the wreck quickly and he did that you do not want them to get wrapped up in there [Music] good dude i didn't realize till after i shot there's one twice as big for real yeah oh no are you sitting on top or on the edge right on top wow still that's a nice one so we did a couple more drops on the wreck everything had kind of spooked which is pretty common like i said so i moved into the shallows just wanted to check a couple shallow ledges a lot of times i'll hold groupers in here as well and the water was decently clear in here had a nice big school of yellowjackets come in and these things were moving so fast that was honestly a terrible shot i really rushed that um not my style i don't know why i did that but sometimes you make mistakes this thing made quite a run someone cut this clip a little short he went went and ran justin actually had a group of rocked up in here and i think this yellow jack spooked it out and he kind of wrapped himself around the rock a lot of times you get these big female nurse sharks that get kind of fired up and they uh sense the disturbance and came over to check what was going on their sharks aren't the best hunters by any means this yellow jack was actually big i think it was 15 gutted this is a clip from justin he found this big big grouper i mean for 25 feet of water this thing's huge kind of out in the open hanging out and he's doing just kind of that running away side to side thing and justin could have taken a shot there but he's going to put he's going to put a shaft right through the meat that just that was patience right there i think that was better for him not to take that shot because that was a beautiful fish and it just didn't give him the good go ahead shot i'm just checking some rocks here um and if you're right-handed i keep the ledge on my left-hand left side just the angle of the gun is better um i mainly show this clip because the sharks come and mess with me it's kind of funny but um that's something i talk to people about is your approach on a ledge because i'm right-handed i want the hole or the ledge to be on my left side because the gun has a better angle now if i'm left-handed i want the ledge to be on my right side if that makes sense i had a red grouper on my belt that i didn't have my camera on when i shot and these nurse sharks sniffed it out i'm guessing these are females because they seem kind of frisky um when they're spawning they get they get real friendly like this so it was pretty funny they just nerd sharks are real docile they normally won't charge or anything they're just kind of curious and they can smell that that fish this one was pretty persistent they are docile but don't sleep on them because they will take your fish if you let them so i kept forgetting to do top side film move to another spot this is a little deeper um this is my first drop water kind of got worse as the day went on a little murkier see some nice lemon sharks here of all the sharks i have trouble with i think lemons and the small reefs are my biggest concern the bulls are powerful and aggressive but the bulls are pretty clear with their intentions the lemons will kind of turn on without warning um in my opinion and this is actually looks like a black gripper but this is actually a yellow edge and we don't see a lot of these this fish is definitely legal they only have to be 20 inches but i don't see a lot of them i'd rather a client shoot it or quite frankly let it hopefully spawn and make more we don't see a lot of yellow edges over here or yellow fin excuse me i'm thinking of the deep drop grouper um yellow fin grouper is what it's called these lemons are all fired up there was a nice mutton back there in the you could barely see them but the lemons kind of got spooky and scared him off and justin told me that there was no way that i was going to get a fish out of here with the lemon sharks around so i kind of took that as a challenge of course so did another drop this was a little shallower about 55 50 i think um kind of scanning on my drop i see a nice nice black grouper kind of spook off here right there kind of takes off and i really didn't think i had this fish because it kind of took off pretty quickly so i'm just trying to keep my eye on it stay mellow i'm still scanning because a lot of times there will be another grouper and now i'm just trying to get low to the rock so it stops pauses me gives me that head-on shot i hate that shot um flicks out to the side and here i really think i lost it but i'm staying low and this grouper slips and makes a mistake and pauses briefly just broadside long enough for me to get a shot kind of a crappy shot i got a little bit of meat there but no big deal was a little murky i thought i was a little farther forward and i slowed that clip down and right when i pulled the trigger that fish kind of took off forward so put the shaft a little farther back than i was aiming but no big deal nice grouper in the boat you can actually see a yellow tail sticking out of his mouth so since i got that grouper up off the bottom i did i decided to do one more drop um there was a decent amount of life here i was convinced that there may be another grouper down there just kind of scanning around i've got my eye on this really nice mangrove and i'm not convinced on it i'm just kind of being picky but quite honestly i'm scanning to make sure those lemons aren't around are going to bug me again i decided to take a little hip fire here on him and quite frankly just terrible timing and it's not often i lose a fish to a shark and i try to get this thing up and i almost lost my fingers had that line wrapped around my finger luckily i was able to clear it before he grabbed a hold of it i talked about that getting wrapped in a sharp grab something if it's wrapped around your weight belt you're going straight back down that shark got lucky there so we're going to slow down a little bit from this morning we're still shooting fish just started out hot but slowed down a bit um but we're still chugging along wind picked up quite a bit actually but we're gonna keep moving so this is our last spot of the day kept moving down um this spot is 60 to the bottom the deeper sides are 65 70 kind of depending on where you drop it's kind of a hump the water got really murky the camera actually makes it look better than it was there's a nice kubera there it does pull about the same price as muttons but i'd rather have a client shoot one of those i saw quite a few on this day but just kind of leave them alone scanning around this is my first drop that cooper is kind of being friendly of course uh there's a grouper here kind of sizing them up like to make sure he's legal he was pretty mellow so i stayed pretty mellow he's up against the rock so i try and get my hand on the backside of that shaft as quick as i can because a lot of times if you shoot them up against something like that the flopper's not going to go all the way through the shaft will stop um and that fish will shake off and that last one was a smaller grouper you can't really make everybody happy if i shoot the small ones they tell me i'm killing juveniles if i shoot the big ones they tell me i'm killing breeders so can't make everybody happy but i assure you it was legal again just kind of scanning the spot had tons of life on it there was lots of big mangroves muttons swimming around um just very very happy today lining up on this guy and he kind of spooks off and he's he triggers another grouper that one went so far i kind of chose to go after the the second one that he spooked i wasn't sure where he went but because it's so murky they blend in really well with the bottom when it's this kind of color and he comes across and gives me that broadside and in these situations when it's murky i i try to get my hands on the fish because i can't tell as well what the shot looks like unless they're really close i actually got a good nick in my shooting line on the banana gun so i switched over to a different gun these guns are basically the same if you're not familiar with my videos i've got a video that i break them down they're pretty much the same other than the fact that one's a rear handle and one's kind of a mid handle or a rear handle plus but pretty much all around the same specs and this is all in the same spot um quite honestly i spooked probably three or four times as many groupers i shot here a lot of people asked me why do you shoot so many fish on one spot well if the spot's healthy you know take take what i can but i promise you there are a lot more that you don't see or that you spook another shifty grouper kind of running away and i don't think i'm going to get the shot and i kind of paused and i didn't realize that he stopped i thought he kept going and do a little hip fire here again they blend in really well with the bottom of the camera it makes it look cleaner than it is so i took three groupers off this spot and i promise you i spooked about seven or eight at least that i saw and here's a kind of a quick cut of some other snappers i shot lots of big mangroves lots of nice muttons i left probably half a dozen buttons two or three nice kuberas this spot was just littered with life today or on this day rather stay tuned for the commercial breakdown i appreciate it wow that's rock baby all right we are done out here plenty of fish tons of fun i think we've done enough damage to make a couple bucks so we're gonna head back and get these weighed up we'll get you the good stuff that you like the numbers see you there crazy so i'm here at keys fresh seafood pretty much what we do is separate all the fish weigh them individually buy species get a tally add those numbers up each species pays a different amount depending on whether it's grouper snapper jack each fishy each fish brings a different price so we're dipping them up right now i'll get you the numbers when i got them tissy who's that did you get them it's my ferocious guard dog all righty i've got the good stuff that you guys like um before i share it a couple of quick things i like to share i know we always say that but um first off please hit the like button if you haven't already i know it's annoying if you if you're watching the videos and you do enjoy them if you don't like them then thumbs down but if you do like them hit the like button it helps a ton it gets them out there and the more popular these are the more time i can spend making them for you boys and girls um and other thing i wanted to share on commercial this commercial side of things of all the videos i make i think the commercial videos probably receive the most negative feedback which is fine i it's the internet people are going to do that i don't mind um it doesn't bother me i promise but if i have an opportunity to educate someone or put things into a little perspective i'm happy to so keep in mind if you are buying fish from your favorite restaurant local fish market supermarket whatever publix piggly wiggly wherever it is that you shop if you're not getting it from a friend or going yourself and getting it you're supporting some sort of commercial fishing practices now with that being said of all the ways that fish can be harvested commercially there's long lining gill netting um deep dropping hook and line some countries i think fish trap which is really not good in my opinion a lot a lot some things have high rate of bycatch where things die unnecessarily some don't spear fishing i'm going down i'm selecting one fish at a time i see a fish that i want i shoot that fish i take that fish up nothing is dying unnecessarily i'm selectively purchasing each fish off of the reef um and a lot of times i let fish swim you know there's a lot of species that i don't harvest that i think if they're they're in trouble um i leave them alone hog fish for example is a fish that i don't i don't harvest anymore um so just keep that in mind um maybe put a little perspective on some things for some people who think this is negative especially if you're buying fish at a restaurant you don't really have much room to talk there but let's get down to the numbers i'm done rambling so we went out we actually cut the day a little short justin got a pretty bad headache and i'm not a huge fan of people diving when they're not feeling well i don't want him to have a blackout or anything like that not worth it but um so we could maybe could have done a little better but not a big deal at all i still did fine just wanted to get some money coming into the business because i had four charters cancel so we had black grouper mutton snapper red grouper yellow jack gray snapper and dog snapper and if this is your first time watching keep in mind this is a daily profit this is not going straight into my pocket back into the business keeping everything running smoothly there's maintenance boat slips insurance gear all that stuff um total sale of 490 dollars uh we had 100 in fuel and 50 for chum so our daily profit was 340 so not bad you know i had a lot of fun um i still think it's kind of unbelievable that i get to go out and do that and i make money doing it it's kind of a dream um it's been a long journey for me to get here so it's pretty exciting that i can do that but that's all i got for this one um let me know how you guys feel about the commercial thing leave some comments i'd love to hear whether it's good or bad um again like button subscribe if you're not already um send me some ideas i'm getting to them as i can and i will see you on the next one later

Channel: Key West Waterman

Views: 136,206

Keywords: spearfishing, free diving, commercial fishing, commercial, commercial spearfishing, grouper, snapper, jack, black grouper, red grouper, key west, Florida Keys, paradise, blue water, cash, sharks, shark

Id: X6xDGN-CAcM

Length: 25min 57sec (1557 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 15 2021