The Chiefy Crew continues its big haul miniseason tradition


By Jim “Chiefy” Mathie | chiefy@newpelican.com

This 2020 miniseason was a perfect storm Wednesday and Thursday – good for the divers but bad for the lobster. 

Rough seas, strong winds and lots of thunderstorms in our area were caused by Hurricane Hanna which landed in southern Texas earlier in the week.

It appears the activity helped move the spiny lobsters around. A few weeks ago we found a lot of spiny lobster in the 75 foot to 85 foot depth. 

The day’s haul of spiny lobster lined up on Chiefy’s seawall cap. [Staff photo]

By Sunday the ocean calmed down enough for the Chiefy Crew to do some pre-miniseason scouting and the results were great. Lots of spiny lobster, shallow and clustered together in the reef, which is a sign that the “bugs” are on the move. 

On Monday and Tuesday, the Chiefy Crew did more scouting and put a plan in place for Wednesday morning. 

Our plan for the past 10 years has been to leave my dock at 6 a.m. so we can be in the water at 6:30 a.m. It’s still dark so we have to use flashlights, however, the spiny lobsters are coming back to their holes in the reef after foraging for food all night.

It’s important to get to our favorite spot first but we have a second, third and even a fourth location if someone else gets there before us. 

This year we encountered poor miniseason etiquette by three divers in another boat. They followed us out of the inlet to our spot and jumped in 50 feet in front of us after we put our first set of divers in the water. 

This is very poor taste, but we’ll leave it to karma to balance out life and miniseason. 

It was obvious they didn’t have a clue where to dive and relied upon following us to our spot.   

The Chiefy Crew of Chuck, Andy, Ken and John are the same members we’ve had for each of the past few years. Ken and John were added when other crew members left the area. And we added outdoor writer Steve Waters several years ago. 

The most spiny lobster the Chiefy Crew found in one “Honey Hole.” [Staff photo]

We have dived together for many years – spearfishing, competing in lionfish derbies and, of course, catching spiny lobster. 

The other part of the plan is we always drift dive with one of us driving the boat and following the dive flag. Everyone knows how to run my boat and the rules for safely operating the vessel. 

The number one rule is the engines are off when we dive in the water and when we get picked up. The main job of the driver is to follow the dive flag and keep other boaters away from it. The law requires boaters to stay 300 feet away from a dive flag but we find most boaters either aren’t aware or don’t care. 

The boat has a dive flag and the divers are carrying a flag that’s floating along the surface of the ocean as they’re diving along the reef.

We have a three-reef system in Broward and Palm Beach. The first one is in 10 to 15 feet of water a few hundred feet off our white, sandy beaches. We get a lot of beach divers and snorkelers, especially during miniseason. 

This year they did very well off the beach.

The second reef is in 35 to 45 feet of water and this is about a quarter of a mile out. This was filled with boating divers. The Chiefy Crew found this area to be most productive. 

The third reef is a little less than a mile off and has a lot of structure but we didn’t find many lobster there this miniseason. 

My good friend Brian Rask dove off the beach in Pompano with another buddy. They got their miniseason limit of 12 per person in 12 to 14 feet of water. Not a bad day at work.

As for the Chiefy Crew, we were finished and drinking beer at 9 a.m. and enjoying the first day’s result: 72 spiny lobster.

Not a bad way to continue the tradition.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *