XXX,
It is not difficult to catch your own fish provided you some expierience snorkling or SCUBA diving, and a little patience. I only collect juviniles and only with aquarium nets. I carry zip lock bags with me under water and a net bag to hold the zip lock bags when full of water. One fish per bag, unless you catch a mated pair, such a butterfly fish. Once on the surface you need some type of large container or live well. The State of Florida requires a live well with pump and also a Salt water fishing license. There are rules and regulations that you must follow as well. Certain fish have minimum and maximum size limits and some are restricted altogether. Avoid slurp-guns at all cost, they kill fish. Over the last 10 years or so I have not lost one fish to net capture. When I tried slurp guns a decade ago about 25% of the fish died in the gun or were dead shortly after and more died in transport to the tank. Avoid slurp guns at all costs. Once you find a fish you want watch it's habits. Does it have a partiular hole that it scurries to for safety? Once you learn it habits, then attempt surround it with two nets, putting one to block it's hole and the other to chase it. It takes some patience, but after awhile it come easy. I find I can catch most fish on the first attempt, which is less stressfull to the fish than spending 30 minuets chasing a fish into exhaustion. If I can't catch the fish in 2 or 3 attempts, I move on. If anyone lives in Fl. and is interested in SCUBA diving for fish, I'm going tomorrow(Saturday) on my boat off of Ft. Lauderdale. The first dive will be on the Mercedes(a 90ft. wreck) and the second dive will be on the reef in about 40ft. My reef tank is maxed out for fish so I'm probably just going to catch lobster for dinner.
Chris
