Issue_12 by Spearfishing Downunder Magazine

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Jew-ry Duty Winters End Amberjack, Trout & 30m Mask Review The Abrolhos Islands Bluewater Rd. MAGAZINE

MASSIVE Snapper

ISSUE 12

Wally Gibbins- we remember

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Wally Gibbins

06 >> Editorial

Gun Review

56 >> AUF Report 60 >> Comps - ‘06 Cloughy Challenge

62 >> Pelagic Gallery

Winters End

68 >> Spearo’s Gallery

72 >> Subscriptions & Merchandise

On the Hunt

73 >> Product Review

36 Smokin’ da Fish

44 PastalavistaKingy

46 Bluewater Road

48 Blurbs from the Blue

54 Pinnacle

58 Jew-ry Duty

66 Dream

Unleashed

The Kat, Jacks & Macks

Issue #12

Descend Main Picture - Freediving through the coral gardens at North West Island, off the coast of Gladstone QLD Australia Photo by Brett Vercoe

Cover - Paul Miller with a once in a lifetime catch, a 13.36kg Snapper | Page 52

Wally Gibbins - Lest We Forget

Walter Hamilton Gibbins

GOLDEN COWRIE

Underwater Pioneer and Champion Skindiver

alter (Wally) Hamilton Gibbins had an aquatic life that is hard to comprehend today- he was a pioneer that spent many thousands of hours pursuing fish, shells, salvage and underwater adventures with his friends. Wally, Ben Cropp and Ron and Valerie Taylor were the Australian equivalents of Jacques Cousteau’s Calypso team. When Wally passed away Australia lost a legend, a generous, humble but extremely capable and courageous explorer of the oceans.

Wally was an avid collector of shells, left is one of his favourites the Golden Cowrie

This tribute to Wally Gibbins was compiled by Dr Adam Smith, National Chair of the Australian Underwater Federation (Spearfishing) with major contributions from David Birch, John Harding, Allan Power, Peter Field, Ron Taylor, Brett Vercoe, Mel Brown, Barry Andrewartha.

He was born in Sydney on 19th January 1930 and passed away at Coffs Harbour on 12th August 2006– but in the 76 years in-between he had saltwater in his blood as he explored the mysteries of the marine environment and inspired countless skin and SCUBA divers. Wally’s relationship with fish and the marine environment goes way back into the 1940’s as a young lad he harpooned Leatherjacket’s from the jetties of Sydney Harbour to feed his family. Here he nurtured his passion for fishing, and sought to improve his catching methods. The next logical step for Wally was to get into the water but in those days this was seen as madness because “You will get eaten by a shark”. Despite the danger and with very limited equipment and no training Wally turned into an inventor and made his own mask, snorkel, belts, SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) and speargun and read what he could in early magazines such as National Geographic and books such as The Complete Goggler by Guy KiIlpatrick (1938) and The Silent Sea (1953) by Cousteau. Most speargun manufacturers use his speargun design even

today. Wally was very innovative but didn’t believe in registering any of his inventions, and freely gave his skills and abilities to any who asked for help in this field. The formation of the Underwater Spearfisherman’s Association at Long Reef in 1948 (now the Australian Underwater Federation) saw Wally join up instantly, and be a leader in the new organization. He was unbeaten in spearfishing competitions in the ensuing years. One feat worth mentioning was his performance in the first contest between Anglers and Spearmen held in 1952. Wal not only finished well ahead of his team mates but his catch alone surpassed all 37 anglers who had fished from the shore and from boats. Wal’s first shark capture was a Wobbegong Shark caught at Middle Head in 1947. In 1950, Wally shot and landed the first man-eating shark in Australia - a Bronze Whaler. The capture of a shark by a skindiver (rather than a man being eaten by a shark) created headline news and crowds at the Sydney beach. Another notable capture was a large 860lbs (over 400kg) Tiger Shark that Wally captured with a spear at Sykes Reef near Heron Island in 1963. These events and the media interest in “Jaws” (book and movie) led to a proposed $1,000,000 death match on TV between Wally Gibbins “Crowd pleasing lightweight” and a Super (Great White Shark) Shark “Scourge of Samoa”- the plan fizzled when the US promoter dropped dead.

when the first dive(s) were made on the wreck of the Birchgrove Park shipwreck in 165 feet (50 metres) of water off a Northern Sydney beach. He covered a search for a midget submarine, and often checked with Wally for any information regarding underwater subjects. Perhaps the most famous wreck was the “Yongala” off the coast of Townsville in Nth Queensland. It is reported that Wally dived alone to incredible depths (250 feet) on SCUBA to salvage propellers on sunken vessels – these exploits would be considered suicide today when the recommended maximum depth for sport divers is 20m (66 feet) and the dangers of decompression sickness. There was nothing that Wally wouldn’t tackle to repair either mechanical, electrical or with wood. Peter Field was Scubapro’s Australian distributor, and later a founding board member of the Historical Diving Society. Peter was one of the last to interview Wal for a New Zealand diving magazine and said ”I met many of the worlds diving greats and almost without exception they measure up as humble and very nice people . Wally exactly fitted that mould but he shone as a star among them. Here was a man living very poorly in a bush shack but I wouldn’t have swapped the hours I spent with him for the king of bloody England”.

Allan Power was a 17-year-old beginner when he first met Wally and is now the longest established and most experienced Dive Operator in Santo, Vanuatu with over 30 years diving THE PRESIDENT COOLIDGE. This is what Allan remembers about Wally “There were skindivers who could dive deeper than Wal but none could beat him at finding fish. He just knew where fish would be best found. Diving with Wally one could not do anything but improve. I owe everything to Wal for the things he taught me about the sea, about boating and about diving”. Wally had a salvage business “The Diving Company” in Sydney and he proved very successful at this, and gained so much confidence in the sea that little in it phased or worried him. Wally was creative in many marine fields - something he had to learn to do after spending a great deal of time in isolated areas of the Pacific Ocean. He became Australia’s foremost wreck diver, and discovered many shipwrecks around the Australian coast, along with his diving mates. Wal’s media mate (the Late) Pat Burgess was an award winning newspaper journalist who liked to write about the sea, sharks and adventure. Pat was there

Ten Australian television films were planned including voyages to the neighbouring countries of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. “This Rugged Coast” (1980) and “Blood in the Water” (2006) by Ben Cropp chronicle some of these expeditions. Wally also did numerous voyages with Australian spearfishing champions and now underwater filmmakers, Ron and Valerie Taylor, as a deck-hand and a star on screen in his own carefree way. The Coralita was at one stage the world’s best sleep-aboard dive boat. Based at Yeppoon, Queensland, Captained and owned by the late WG (Wally) Muller, Coralita made voyages with divers to many distant locations. Wal Gibbins divemastered such trips, especially in the Solomon Islands (where he had been based while salvaging World War II shipwrecks and live ammunition).

Wally also had a great love of Pacific Islanders, and spent many of his adult years in the Solomon Islands. He was doing salvage work way back in the 1950’s and 60’s - making money from clearing explosive shells and scrap brass from old and dangerous World War 2 wrecks. It is an understatement to say that this was a very hazardous job. His numerous stories of unexploded shells going off in the water on the way to the surface, and on the beach where they were detonated, had us all amazed that he was still alive. Wally’s first experience with underwater filming was “The King of the Coral Seas” featuring Chips Rafferty. Wal filmed all the underwater footage and doubled as a stuntman for one of the actors. Wally spent many years at sea in the 1960 - 70’s with world champion underwater photographer Ben Cropp, shooting footage for underwater documentaries that are still in circulation today. Wally Gibbins was part of Ben’s crew of five aboard Beva, to film around Australia for two years beginning in May 1977.

In June 1965, Wally was a member of the Australian Spearfishing Team selected to attend the World Spearfishing Championships at Tahiti. Along with Wally were Sydney teammates Peter Kemp, and Ron Taylor, and Newcastle’s George Davies who was Team Manager. Both Ron and Peter were current Australian Champions in a sport that was deemed to be the extremes of insanity to take up. Wally was diving for training for the tournament in Tahiti, and a couple of days before the competition he blacked out after coming up from a dive estimated to be well

First and foremost let me just say this is a “Gun Review” not a “Gun Comparison”. There is a vast range of prices and intended applications for all of these models and “comparing” one against another is unfair. You want a gun to be accurate, reliable and well made, so this is more the focus of this review rather than any sort of comparison. Our intent here is simply to profile a range of 130cm guns, highlight our likes and dislikes, show you some real test results and let you make up your own mind about what gun is best for you. Simple as that! We definitely didn’t set out to pick a winner. That said there was one clear winner that came out of this review……read on!

Why the 130cm?

Well, we wanted to pick a size that was reasonably universal. The 130cm gun can be used for just about anything from Bream to Dogtooth Tuna. True many people use bigger and smaller guns but on average it was a good compromise.

Test Criteria

In testing the guns we devised a standard set of criteria that any self respecting spearfisher would want to know before purchasing a gun. We have tried to keep the criteria as practical as possible to give you a good overview of how the gun would perform in field. They include:

Build Quality

Components, finish, etc. We only had the guns for a short test period so reliability is not something we had the luxury of testing. The better a gun is built the more “likely” your new gun is to give years of trouble-free spearfishing, so look at the build quality with a view to “guesstimating” how long a gun would last.

How easy and comfortable the gun is to load. Pretty straight forward but an important consideration if you are continually shooting and reloading.

Manoeuvrability

How the gun tracks through the water. Various factors influence this and again it is something that is really difficult to ascertain if you are looking at a gun on the shelf.

Shooting

The feel of the trigger, recoil, how stable the gun feels in the water.

Accuracy

This is a very interesting one. Accuracy might be better termed “consistency”. If a gun consistently shoots in the same spot every time then minor adjustment to your shooting style or gun setup may be all that is needed to make it accurate. A gun that shoots all over the place is another thing entirely. In this test you will notice that very few of the guns hit the bullseye but most of them were consistent in where they did land. More often than not it was simply a function of the shaft dropping over distance and there was very little in the way of horizontal variance – this is good. Slightly more power or getting closer to your target would yield a very accurate gun. Small modifications, be it shooting style or equipment are generally part of the “breaking in” process for any new gun. Provided that the gun performs consistently you can usually hone in your accuracy over the first couple of dives. So accuracy was justifiably judged in relation to consistency.

Reloading

There is only one thing worse than missing a nice fish – trying to reload a difficult gun whilst the fish swims around laughing at you. So again we looked at some simple criteria like spear engagement, shooting line and line releases, how easily the spear went back through the muzzle. Simple stuff but annoying when it doesn’t go right in the water.

PART - 1 The response from suppliers to this review was very enthusiastic, so much so that we had to split the review over two issues. This issue we look at the Torelli Tigon, Aimrite Carbon, Sea Hornet Commando, Picasso Century Pacific HD, Rabitech Hunter, Rob Allen Sparid and the Undersea Terminator.

PART - 2 Next Issue we look at the Edge, Riffe Euro, Rabitech Apex, Black Dog, Freediver, Aimrite Aluminium, Picasso Carbotitanio - but for now check out Part 1 >>

The Target

The target grids that you see on each gun profile are made up of a 3x3 grid of 50mm (2”) squares, that is a 150mm x 150mm (6”x 6”) grid. The shots were taken from 4m which constitutes about 75% of maximum shooting range for guns of this type. So essentially we were trying to hit a 50mm (2”) square from 4m which is a reasonable expectation.

Abbreviations

GRP – Glass Reinforce Plastic: typically used in muzzles and handles S/S – Stainless Steel

Words and Photos - John Featherstone

View from Woolgoolga Headland looking South to South-West Solitary (Grouper Islet) to the right and South Solitary in the distance

n the North Coast of NSW Australia, a Southerly wind brings with it the warmer blue waters from wide out on the Continental Shelf. It is like a sweet cleansing breeze and you know even though you must forgo today’s dive due to the driving Southerly it will be tomorrows reward. Standing atop Woolgoolga Headland you can feel the Southerly stripping away the weeks of anguish as you see the “blue-line” creeping ever so slowly toward the coastline.

Photos and Words by Paul McKeown

weekend at the Abrolhos is an event planned months in advance. There is no place like it and to say ‘I love it’ is an understatement. This time the focus for me was going to be learn to master a new camera, however a healthy brace of fish was never out of the question. I wanted to take better digital images and thought there’d be no better place for a crash course. The Abrolhos can deliver awesome clarity and lots of fish so it was with keen anticipation that we set off for these magic islands. In the end I learnt more than I thought I would about hunting with just the camera. Anyone who wants to improve their bottom time and hunting skills should really try underwater photography as it’s a real eye opener. I feel pain. But it’s a good pain. As I lay in my bunk back on the Island Leader I can feel every muscle, every sun burnt inch. It hurts to breathe as my chest has been a load pad for the last 10 hours, my lips are cracked and my legs feel like lead. But what a day. Fifty metre vis, the best West Australian reef fish imaginable and great mates to share it with. “You can’t ask for more than that”, I think as I begin to drift off…..

Midnight. ‘abrolhos-abri vossos olhos!’…..‘Open your eyes look out!’ The cry of old mariners hovers on the air, echo beneath echo as the oceans voice roars out of the Indian deep to fling itself, shattered in spray, on the ledges of the great reefs that surround the Abrolhos. I sit bolt upright in my bunk as the haunted isles speak

Photo by Torry Goodall

ublic holiday

Pi n n a c l e by Tim McDonald

ugust 16th, Brisbane Show day. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great to have a mid week public holiday but the big problem with that is everyone has the day off. So crowd escaping was the name of the game when we were talking the night before about where to go.

The great thing about South-east Queensland is that although lots of places get heavily fished you can still find untouched, out of the way places. All you need is a hunger to explore and the patience to try new things. We decided on a spot that is 35km off the Sunshine Coast .It is a pinnacle that comes out of 55 metres of water and the top of it is 34 metres deep. The top is quite flat with a bit of rubble and Plate Corals but the drop-off is jagged. The whole area is about the size of a football field and there are no other lumps for miles so it is a major fish attraction. We have shot good Wahoo and Mackerel at times off this spot and encountered some major shark problems as well. Three oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock the alarm went off and it was time to get moving. I picked up Chris Peiro and Andrew Sprenger and the boat and we hit the road. We put the boat in the water as the sun was just starting to come up. After passing the headland into more open water we noticed the wind was a bit fresher than forecast and I could see we had a nasty boat trip ahead of us. Two painful hours later, we arrived and it was so rough it actually took a while to get the anchor to hold. Finally, with the anchor holding, we were over the side. The visibility was good, about 20 metres, and absolutely no current so we immediately started burleying. Within seconds there were Longtail Tuna buzzing through the burley trail. I dived down and aimed at a few of the larger bits of burley but the fish were a bit wary and hung wide. I waited and one of the Tuna made a pass at about 7 metres. I was using my Riffe Islander so I took the shot and hit him mid body. The sliptip engaged and I must have hit his spine because he had no fight in him at all. Two minutes in the water and we had our first fish, a 9kg Longtail Tuna. We continued to burley and a few fish were coming right up off the bottom to the flashers hanging at about 16 metres. Andy dropped down and shot a Rusty Smalltoothed Jobfish, these are an odd looking fish found in these sorts of areas.

My next dive was to see what was congregating on the bottom which was not visible until you were about half way down. I had swapped guns to my Riffe Euro as it is a lot easier diving with at depth. As the bottom came into view I could see that there was quite a lot of life. I was scanning through the Surgeons for a Green Jobfish when something to my right caught my eye. It was a large school of Amberjack, all 20kg plus and they were starting to come straight at me. One swam under me and rolled to have a look, I could see he was quite a significant fish and as I was hanging at about 29 metres I knew I needed a head shot.

I lined him up and hoped to stop him straight away. I pulled the trigger and saw the shaft slam into his head, which made quite a loud thump and I was not sure if the shaft had gone straight through. But fortunately he was all but dead, a short struggle and I had him at the surface for a few photos. Really, the biggest struggle of all was trying to lift him out of the water for the photo. We continued diving and burleying and were seeing some good Tuna in the burley trail. Unfortunately the Tuna were being extremely wary, they would fly through the burley when you were on the surface but as soon as you dived they would disappear only to return as you hit the surface. After a number of frustrating dives chasing the Tuna I started focusing again on the bottom. At these depths we dive strictly in pairs so Chris and I teamed up. While one would dive the other would keep an eye from the surface, at times even having to dive to keep the other diver in view. On about my 5th dive, I levelled out at about 27 metres when I noticed a really good Coral Trout come up over the drop-off below me. I dropped down on top of him, he had a quick look and was about to head back over the drop-off as I hit him from behind. He went straight for the edge. I quickly tried to stop him but using a double wrap on my Riffe Euro made that difficult. He got his head into the edge of the reef for just a moment but fortunately I was able to pull him out before he got too lodged. Once on the surface I realised he was quite a substantial Blue Spot Trout weighing 6.5kg and was one of the most beautiful fish I had ever caught. Shooting Trout in places like this is a real challenge and very

rewarding. Next dive Chris shot a nice Squire but the weather was getting worse so with a long trip back, and the fact that the sharks were getting more burley than the fish, we decided to head in close to search out some Crays. We spent 30 minutes looking but only found a few small ones so I headed back to the boat only to find Chris had shot a nice 4kg Coral Trout, we had a few laughs at the irony of the fact that a couple of hours earlier we were diving in over 30 metres of water yet now had shot a Trout in shallow water of 14 metres. To shoot the second one was a fair bit easier. By now the weather was getting ugly and so it was time for home. Overall we had a good day, and barely seeing another boat. There are still unexplored little gems to be found, you just need to love adventure and I think perhaps, just be a little crazy. Top Left: 6.5kg Blue Spot Coral Trout Top: 9kg Longtail Tuna Right: 20kg Amberjack

by John Billington very Spearo has a dream list of fish that they want to land. It was just lately that I dreamt and thought more of Wahoo and Cobia. I would repeatedly watch DVDs of expert spearos hunting down Wahoo and Cobia and wondered about the power and watching closely at how the fish swam, and how skilful you must be to approach and land these fish.

I’ve only been spearing for almost 3 years and I love the spearfishing way. Being selective, active, and experiencing what the ocean has to offer – that’s magical. However though, it has its risks, but like anything that has high risks comes great rewards. My reward happened on the 8th October 2006, diving outside North Straddie. Four good friends and one female tourist headed out in open water. Our first stop was a set of rocks called the Group. I partnered up with Luke Randell and we began our drift. In this area I was expecting to come across Parrots, Slateys, Leatherjackets and Drummers so I opted to use my brand new 1.1m Rob Allen Caranx with a single 20mm and single wrap.

We came across plenty of Manta Rays and Luke and I took turns going up and down and inspecting under the Mantas and the bottom. As Luke submerged to the bottom I was attracted to some boulders to my left. As I made my way a Manta Ray emerged and following it was 10 to 15 large Cobias. I quickly turned to look for Luke and as he surfaced I yelled at him to come over. The moment he laid his eyes on the school of Cobias he quickly finned his way over. We dived simultaneously, took aim and fired. My spear punched through one big Cobia. The fight was on. Having never experienced a large fish I started pulling the line (at last I got to feel the power first hand). Luke screamed at me “LET IT RUN, JOHN! LET IT RUN!” I let my float line go and watched as the Cobia twisted, turned from side to side and swimming in circles. My heart rate at this stage was belting and I was panicking that I might lose this fish. Then the fish began to tire. I began pulling the fish and as the line tensioned the fish re-activated. Luke advised me to swim down, grab the fish and bring it up. I asked him if he could put a second holding shot in. He told me that his spear line

had snapped but as a good wing man does, he drops down level to the wounded Cobia and places a good head shot, which immediately made the Cobia go limp. Against the current and with a 70m swim we headed back for the unmanned boat. I held the Cobia by the gills and pulled it close to my body to make us more streamlined. I sensed and appreciated the size and length of this fish but it wasn’t until I got into the boat that I really appreciated its weight and the dimension of the fish. I was elated, euphoric and couldn’t calm myself down. My next magical moment occurred at a lonesome rock on the far Eastern side of North Straddie. Cuong chose to go boatie and so Luke and I jumped in first and Wazza followed. As we approached the rock, Luke submerged first inspecting the bottom. I kept finning forward and scanning around me. As I scanned to my right a silver shaped torpedo cruised up beside me and we made eye contact. I quickly took my eyes off it and made a gentle duck dive. I made two light shallow kicks and with my gun extended aimed for the fish’s head. I was sinking down at an angle on my target and when I saw the eye of the fish I squeezed the trigger. The spear punched through and the silver torpedo exploded into sprint. Once again I made the instinctive error of grabbing the running float

line and fighting with it. Instead of me pulling the fish up, it was I being pulled down. I released my grip on the line and watched as my $700 equipment disappearred into the blue. “Say goodbye to your new gun,” I thought. I surfaced and looked around for my float – nothing. The other divers had no idea what just transpired and were doing their thing. I yelled for the boat and I asked Cuong if he could see my float. 40m from where I originally shot it and behind the rock the float bobbed up. I got in the boat and was taken to it. I asked him to give me another gun fully rigged and I jumped in beside the vertical float bobbing up and down. At this stage my heart rate was beating fast and I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it down to 18m where the fish was hanging. So I slowly retrieved the fish to a 7m level where I dove down to place a reserve line. From the surface I slowly pulled the fish in, grabbed it by the tail and waved for the boat. This magnificent silver body was a Wahoo. The Cobia weighed at about 11kg and the Wahoo at about 16kg, two wonderful fish in the same day. These are the kind of moments in life that make your spirit soar and it fuels the passion. With a mixture of chance, daring, hard training and persistence anything is achievable……..That’s where it’s at!