Freedive State Championship

[Steel Shootin']

Who is doing this event on April 12? I had thought about doing it and putting a team with the mandatory observer on the Gag Reflex, but to be honest, I don't know many freedivers. Furthermore, I have a hard time holding my breath for extended periods of time, and I have never freedived before, so I would have to target some pretty shallow stuff off of Bayport. I'd like to support the organizers of this event, who are good people. Just need to find a group of piss-poor freedivers like myself who would be willing to target shallows.

[Steel Shootin']

OK, I've got two guys interested now. Starting to look like a team. I'm just debating whether it would be worthwhile to shoot in 15 ft. What if there is no vis?:confused:

[fizisition]

I am also looking to put a team together to hunt in 45fsw or less N of tarpon spgs. I have the ride just need to get a couple of shooters

[fishhunta]

i could talk to bfsc from the board and see if hes interested, hes a damn good freediver and comes to the site often, just looking. he and his bro can hunt 80-90ft and i can do around 65-70.

[Steel Shootin']

You guys are way out of my league.

[Ed Walker]

We've organized a team and will be there. In the spring, theres quite a few grouper in shallow up that way. The format of this tournament (aggregate) helps even the playing field. 20 decent fish will most likely beat a couple of monsters from the deep, at least in the overall div. See you there.

[Screen Name]

Hey Captain Ed.....Do you have a good GPS or Loran route in and out of Bayport that you can share? I'd like post one on the tournament website (which is still under development).

Rules etc. can be downloaded from here...

http://www.fsda-wcc.com/

For those thinking about going, freediving the shallow water of Bayport can be a lot of fun that time of year.

[Ed Walker]

No sorry, I dont really have it plotted. As long as everyone stays in the channel to the Tripod and then stays west of it they should be fine. Its pretty shallow due north and south of the tripod but SW, and W should present no trouble. NW...well theres a couple boulders but the bigger ones have signs on them nowadays. STAY AWAY FROM THE WHITE SIGNS, THEY MARK ROCKS THAT ARE BIG AND VERY CLOSE TO THE SURFACE. Venturing out of the channel before the tripod at the end is a serious no-no. The tournament date is 4 days prior to the moon so it will be fairly strong tides. If I were coming up in an inboard (like the gag reflex) on a low tide, I would idle the length of the channel. Its only 4 or 5 feet deep in a couple places such as next to marker 5. Im sure the tripod coordinates would be on chart for that area...hang on let me look.......thought I had one but I cant find it right now. Ill post here if I find it.

[Mr Throw Pole]

freediving is my main source of fish am willing to travel to eneter any tournaments have several friends that hunt in the 80 and below range. Over on the east coast freediving is much more popular. As far as the vis goes nwe encounter many days here in miami where vis is less than 20. in these cases you must spend most of your time down near the bottom. I dive is necesary just to view the bottom and any potential targets

[JohnyLongblades]

Hey guys,
I just moved to south tampa area from the Keys, I am all about free diving, just need some folks to take me in and show me some decent spots to dive. I can efficently shoot in about 70ft. If anyone wants to go, and needs someone to tag along, ill pay for gas, and what ever else. send me a message, please. Thanks guys

[sharpshooter]

I'll be an observer from the Zeagle team. Each team has an observer that goes on another boat. I won't know which boat till april 12. See ya on the 12!!!!

[Ed Walker]

SS, looks like your on our team, so to speak. Welcome. Hopefully we will get a break from this weather. Not exactly ideal conditions. This winds are going to howl thru Friday. No scouting and the vis cant be all that great the day after a blow like this. Temperature is dropping. Jeez.

[Chad Carney]

Congratulations to the Team & Individual Winners of the 2003 States Freediving Tournament, Bayport, FL.
(Taken from a digital photo of the incomplete hand written results list, sorry about typos and omissions.)

#1 286.4 Deep Impact- Miguel Guinovar, Nivio Diaz & Rafiel Gonzalez
#2 263.5 Red Tide- GR Tarr, Chris Gardinal & Ritchie Zacker
#3 248.3 FSDA #1- San Carloino Jr, Charlie Hogge? & Gary Zumwalt
#4 218.2 Chad Palan, Jose' Santiero & Ciro?
#5 205.6 Zeagle Team- Ed Walker, Sheri Daye & Chad Carney
#6 197.0 Spearfishing Magazine- Paul Jones, ? & ?
#7 155.2 Dead Fish- Jerry Guerra, Gary Sanchez & Sasha Bratic
#8 146.9 Seals #1- ?,? & ?
#9 121.1 Diving Buster?- ?,? & ?
#10 48.4 Dynomite Klan- ?,? & ?
#11 0.0 St Pete Fire Dept- ?, ? & ?

#1 117.0 Miguel Guinovar
#2 96.0 Nivio Diaz
#3 93.7 Ritchie Zacker

Biggest fish:

Grouper- 17.5 Paul Jones
Hogfish- 4.4 Sam Carlino Jr
Snapper- 4.4 Miguel Guinovar

Sheri Daye appears to be the first female to ever compete in the States, and on an equal level with the guys, not in a separate ladies category. She had a nice stringer and helped our "Zeagle Team" place 5th, only 12.6 points behind all the National level competitors.

Capt Ed Walker, the infamous light tackle "Tarpon Ed", put us on the hot spots and shot a nice stringer himself! We only had one scouting/pratice day.

Not bad for a fishing guide, a scuba bum and a girl!!!

[Screen Name]

with photos as we speak. I'll post the full results and some photos here when its done, as well as the link. The short story is.............Man that was freaking awesome!

By the way, 9th place was the Lung Busters, Mike Cave, Tom Morris, and John Schmidt, yes we did get our ass kicked by a girl, and yes she is a hot lookin woman! http://216.40.249.192/s/otn/funny/jump1.gif And, we dove our http://66.227.101.70/otn/funny/moon.gif off.

I met divin fool inadvertently while there, nice guy.

Chad, crop out some of the unneccesary stuff (we have all seen outboards) blow up the area with Sheri, shrink the area with you guys, resize the pic to no more than 8" wide, and you will have a really nice photo! :D

[Chad Carney]

Ok, here's the best shot of Sheri and her stringer. She lead the boat two thirds of the day and probably would have shot all 20 fish if she had switched from her Daryl Wong line gun back to freeshafting her Biller 48 in the shallower stuff.

[Divin' fool]

Nice to meet you Screen Name. I ended up freediving some of the day anyway. Should have signed up! How did your team do? We had a pretty good day around the 45fsw depths. Hunted Friday and Saturday. I shot a huge Gag in a hole that I lost. I'm still pissed off.
That Dorado team had a chitload of NICE fish. Nobody would give me a straight answer on the depths they dove.:rolleyes:. Maybe I'll do one of those freedive tournaments some day. I can still do the 50fsw depths.

[Ed Walker]

Yes, that girl can shoot some fish let me tell ya. She shot a line gun and as soon as she pulls the trigger she heads up. She knows she got em' and she does, everytime. Unlike myself who shot freeshaft and not only lost a tough wrestling match with a pissed off bellyshot 12 pound gag but later had a clean miss on one that would have limited out the boat on gags. Shooting 150 pounds of fish in day of freediving aint a bad day though. We're already making plans for next year and have every intention of moving up on the scoreboard. I will say i was impressed with the competition. Theres some incredibly talented freedivers in that tournament. Thanks to those of you who helped put the whole thing together.

[Chad Carney]

Don't let Ed bullshit you with that lame story above, the boy has natural ability, because he had not freedived or shot his gun since fall. We scouted Friday but just did mostly look-see dives, and he only got to shoot one time all day. He ran out of steam late in the day, but let me tell you it's really grueling to freedive hard all day long! Two years ago it kicked my butt big time, so this year I was prepared. Sheri has been freediving or scuba diving almost weekly too. Ed shot 12 fish for for 64.6 points. His biggest hogfish was 4.1 only .3 away from 1st. He's pissed about losing that gag, but hey I lost a 10 lbs gag too, it happens.
Ed's very competitive and usualy wins everything he fishes in. Check lighttacklecharters.com and you'll see what I mean. If you tournament divers want a real dose of reality check the size of the prizes on his site. (A 5hp Mercury Kicker is the biggest prize ever in the St Pete Open, the biggest tournament in the world! Usually it's a 2hp or last year it was only a regulator.)
Next year the freedivers will remember us, Sheri's hard to forget anyway, but so were our stringers. They won't have a clue about our abilities for next year... we're going to shame some pretty big shooters!

Chad

[RichT]

The results and pictures for the state tournament have been posted at FSDA-wcc.com

[fishkilla]

i don't usually do that well with tanks... you guys (and gal) are awesome!

[RichT]

I also would like to thank the organizers and volunteers that made this tournament a great success. Especially Dave Shelton.
I had a great time at this years tournament even though we only put our team together 3 days before the tournament and did no scouting.
I have competed against or with many of the shooters participating in the State tournament and can attest to the fact that everybody who participated is a great shooter.

I think most everybody who competed in this tounament will agree that the atmosphere at this event is unlike many spearfishing or fishing tournaments.
It feels as though all of the participants have a great deal of respect for each other just for entering this tournament and it shows both in the morning and at the end of the day.

It was great seeing some new teams this year and I look forward to seeing some more new teams next year.
One of the great things about Bayport is that if you can locate an area that is holding fish you can really load up Quick.

Just an observation. But I counted 12 current or former members of the St. Pete Underwater Club on the roster at the State Championships.