M16 Reef

Today's dive was a 2 tank dive at M16, after planning this dive for several days and meeting up with a couple friends we hit this spot around 11am today. I was a tad nervous getting out to this spot in our 19' Seapro CC, but it did great with the 1' waves. We arrived exactly at the coordinates listed and found concrete culverts, basins, and what appeared to be some sort of I-beam from a bridge. Tons of small fish, several Jew fish in the 30+ Lb range, and Barracuda. We also found 3 fishing rods, and a boat anchor. The site was not too crowded  we were able to find our own chunk to call our own and really enjoyed the diving here.

M16 is located 8.5 Miles West out of Venice Pass (27° 03.827’N  82° 35.625’W) at a depth of 50'


Youtube video of us diving M16 : HERE

Finding Fishing/Spear Spots

Well today is far from a good dive day, I was tempted to take the boat out and search the area for "numbers or dive locations." but the wind was really to strong to make it enjoyable. I find it very difficult to find a website that shares any of this information, so I plan on updating this blog with numbers that I research/find. On my non-dive able days I find myself researching and today was no different I went to West Marine and purchased a Dive/Fishing Chart of the area that has about 100 sets of coordinates up and down the coast from Sarasota/Port Charlotte, and one of my goals is to dive almost all of them and hopefully find some fish to shoot. I have learned to look for ledges, reefs, or other structure that the fish like to use as a home, this can be done on bad viz days by driving your boat in a methodical search pattern looking for changes on your depth finder, or by sheer luck. Subscribe to my blog for updates of locations.....

When to Dive?

It took me awhile to figure out a little trick for Gulf of Mexico diving. I would always just drive by the beach and look to see when the waves were manageable and hope that there was good visibility. However a new trick I wish someone would have taught me earlier and I am now sharing with you is: www.swellinfo.com this amazing website allows you to drill down to the Venice area and gives you the forecast for winds/swells as the title probably gave away. You aim for "GREEN" condition days, and preferably several of them in a row with no interruption of green. You will understand what I mean when you visit this site and take a look at the forecast. This allows the water to settle and I have found my best viz by following this rule of thumb.

Sharks Tooth Dive Spot (Venice Florida)

A great local dive spot for beach/shore diving is South Brohard. Located just south of Venice Beach and just North of Caspersen. You are looking to go aprox 1 mile out if you can safely make it in about 27' of water. This location is home to Megs, Hemis, and other fossils.