How one team went freediving, spearfishing at 2022 Crosthwaite fishing tourney
Logan Reiber with team Heintz Law was not exactly sure where he would be sending his spearfishing teammates to catch points heading into the 2022 Crosthwait Memorial Fishing Tournament.
“We’ve been trying to get together for a while now,” said the Manatee High School graduate Reiber. “I’ve got a good crew of skilled friends that all love spearfishing. We had some buddies from Ft. Myers come up and they love going out to shoot big black grouper.”
So he reached out for help. His desire was to use his teammates’ expertise while capitalizing on the 50 nautical mile boundary the tournament required.
“I texted a few buddies and asked them if they had any black grouper numbers. Sure enough, someone said they caught one at a spot 49 nautical miles and had another spot close to it at 48 nautical miles out. They also said they lost a bunch of big fish there,” Reiber explained.
When the tournament started, the team began free diving, looking for pelagic fish in the water column. As Reiber explained, pelagic fish had the potential for high point values.
“That made the most sense to start for since they can get heavier. We wanted to try for amberjack, African pompano and permit, or maybe get lucky and see a cobia. Free diving is better to do first so that was our beginning plan.”
On a wreck for their first spot, Greyson Dixon got the points started for the team. A pair of African pompano with one at 35 pounds and the other at 33 pounds proved to be a great opener. A shot at a cobia was just missed and the teammates saw permit that stayed just out of range, but with two solid fish to start they headed deeper to the black grouper bottom.
Dixon headed down first with Jason Knight. The duo were familiar with the black grouper spearfishing challenges as big ones can reach sizes over 100 pounds.
“They went down and not long went by before we saw a big black grouper floating to the surface! We’re all hooting and hollering and they’re still on their ascent up. When we grabbed it we realized just how big it was because it took two of us to lift it over the gunnel. We thought it had to be 60 to 65 pounds.”
Rising to the surface Knight had another quality fish, a 13-pound hogfish on his stringer. “First bump to the bottom and we had four awesome fish,” Reiber exclaimed.
Heading to the next spot, Reiber dropped down with Jack Titsworth. At 150 feet deep, it would be a technical dive that wouldn’t allow for much bottom time.
“There had to be about 100 feet of visibility because 50 feet down I looked and could already see a monster grouper. I thought no way that’s another black, but it was. There were also giant gag grouper, a 400-pound goliath grouper and red snapper everywhere while we dropped down, it was so clear like a fish tank. I saw the big black grouper go into his spot so I went straight for it.”
Reiber lined up a shot, hoping to “stone” the fish for a quick and instant death requiring less struggle.
“When I shot, he went back into the hole and started to dirty up the water. I had a good shot so knew it would be a mortal wound, but the fish didn’t die immediately. We went up 30 feet and watched him stay in his hole. We knew where he was at so we said let’s go to the surface then we can recover him on another dive.”
Having been out of the water for two hours, Knight and Dixon went back down. They returned in short order with Reiber’s black grouper, a close size to the first. After adding an amberjack for their sixth fish, the crew headed home.
At the weigh-in, their impressive catch drew cheers from the crowd. The black grouper weighed in at 87 and 86 pounds, and with the African pompano, hogfish and amberjack a total of 717 points cleared second place by more than 200.
“That was the only six fish we even put in the boat,” Reiber said. “I don’t think we would of had room for anything else. We joked because we said it was a slow day, but it was sure nice for everything to work out like that.”