Yachting to find Fish

Sport fishing with a Speargun

Owning a private yacht allows one to get to places on earth where the reefs and wrecks encourage gamefish to flourish.  Free-diving (with only a lungful of air) enthusiasts often use a large yacht as home base in remote areas and employ a tender to hunt from.  They move from site to site, looking for the prey of choice and often diving up to 100’ to spear with band guns that are equipped with reels.   This activity really separates the men from the boys in terms of physical conditioning. 

South Florida and the Bahamas offer exceptional areas to spear fish.  Some divers even hunt in the deep Florida Straights for pelagic fish such as tuna, dolphin and wahoo.   Most prized are bottom species such as grouper and hog snapper.  Large wreck-fish such as pompano, amberjack and cobia are also on the wanted list.

At the end of the day, the crew on the yacht filets the catch (often giving much away to the local crowd), vacuum bagging and freezing the choicest morsels.  Nothing like a day of hard diving with good action and a sit-down to the catch of the day.

One yacht, “Rapture” is a 105’ Westship with 5 staterooms plus crew quarters.  They operate and either tow or ship a SeaVee 35’ center console boat with a Yanmar diesel engine.  “Rapture” roams the southeastern US seaboard, the Bahamas, Mexico and lower Central America – following the migrations and clear water opportunities that allow for great spearfishing. 

Captain Doug Michelle operates “Rapture” for owner/spearfisher Andy Ansin and his world-class diving buddies.  In the fall, they make their way down to the Yucatan for a month or two, then to the west coast of Panama through the Panama canal and work Panama, Costa Rica and northwards as far as the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.  Returning in the early summer, they often perform yacht maintenance in a Fort Lauderdale shipyard before heading off to destinations such as North Carolina for the summer. 

Check out the “Rapture” photo album and be sure to check in regularly for ‘fresh meat’.  Also…dial into the Outdoor Channel and watch the “Spear hunter” series.  3 episodes this Winter, 2009 feature Andy Ansin and pals free-diving the Frying Pan Shoals off of Cape Hatteras – where the hogfish are big and the sand sharks are everywhere!  These guys live the dream!