By design, the county’s reef system lures marine life, anglers and divers.
By Terry Gibson
Since its inception in the 1970s, Martin County’s award-winning artificial reef program has deployed more than 95 outstandingly productive sites for divers and fishermen. That’s a lot of reefs—more than most anglers and divers get to explore in a lifetime off Martin County.
The artificial reefs emerge from depths ranging thirteen to 200 feet to the sand. Thanks to an arrangement with The Martin County Utilities and Solid Waste Department, the Martin County Artificial Reef Program can secure clean materials for reef building that would otherwise go to a landfill. Some of the reefs, especially those made from concrete rubble, bare a resemblance to our natural limestone formations. . They’re quickly covered by a fuzzy growth of algae which brings in the baitfish. Soon thereafter the material begins to be colonized by primitive but important animals such as corals, sponges, and tunicates that provide food and/or cover for an enormous variety of species higher in the foodweb. Others are sunken vessels, which attract fish and offer divers the exciting experience of exploring a shipwreck. But that’s not the end of the new habitat – the sand surrounding the reefs will soon support invertebrates like sea stars and sand dollars. All in all it takes anywhere from 3-5 years for this transformation to be complete.
SCUBA divers take advantage of the profiles out to 130 feet. (If you’re diving deeper than 60 feet, it is highly recommended that you take a deep diver specialty course.) The deeper wrecks, those beyond the safe recreational diving limit of 130 feet, also attract resident and visiting tech divers. Tech divers either carry multiple tanks with mixes of gases that allow them to spend more time on the bottom at extreme depths, or divers use closed-circuit “rebreather technology.” Spearfishing and lobster hunting can be very productive on our artificial and natural reefs.
The shallower reefs are also great places to “meet” big animals that really aren’t shy around divers. There’s just not that much dive pressure here, though conditions and visibility are often decent to quite good year round, especially in the spring and summer months.
Divers will almost certainly encounter goliath groupers, a behemoth, long-lived protected species that is coming back following levels of overfishing that nearly wiped them out by the early 1990s. Snook also frequent the reefs. This area is one of the few places in the world left where you can still find this species. Sea turtles, including loggerhead, leatherback and green sea turtles, as well as the occasional hawk’s bill, also love to nap and feed on reefs. You will also likely see giant stingrays and potentially sharks, which generally have no interest in divers unless you’re spearfishing.
The program is also a huge boon for fishermen. In fact, novice anglers and anglers new to the area are well advised to use their GPS units and sonar to find the artificial reefs and focus fishing efforts in and around them.
Wrecks, especially the Bull Shark Barge, usually produce species such as thread herring, sardines and blue runners used for live bait. Anglers typically use quill rigs to load up the live well. And where there’s bait there are usually predator fish. Martin County’s artificial reefs produce a wide variety of species popularly targeted by recreational anglers. Cobia and permit make seasonal appearances, though there are always a few of each around. Bottom fishermen target snappers and groupers, including mutton, lane and gray snappers, as well as scamp, gag and black grouper. Most groupers are open to harvest May through December.
Artificial reefs also attract pelagic species—migratory predators that roam the coastal and open ocean waters. Coastal pelagics include Spanish and king mackerel, a smaller tuna called the “little tunny,” or locally, “bonito,” as well as sailfish. Stuart is the Sailfish Capital of the World, and plenty of those acrobatic billfish are caught near artificial reefs both shallow and deep. Anglers also encounter mahi mahi, locally called “dolphin,” as well as wahoo, tunas and blue marlin, but typically around the mid-depth and deeper reefs.
There are four main artificial reef areas, several of which encompass natural hardbottom as well. Given the typical northerly currents, most conditions allow anglers and divers to drift lazily along in the current over feature after feature. Some of the best charter captains in the business use this tactic, and with a GPS unit/sonar machine just about anyone can put a crew in position for a great day in or on the water off Martin County.