Issue_17

ISSUE

12northernBreath

20theShallows

26nzBluefin

28springCobia

30eyeOnThePrize

32solomonIslands

36northToTheRock

#17 Regular 6

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Editorial

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Letters

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Spear?Tips

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Spearing Sydney

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Photogallery

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Subscribe

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DEEP Spearfishing

72eastTimor

68capeYellowFin

62fauxFish

40crayfishCapers

44otoliths

48coralSeaVirgin

58jew-Vember

I guess it had to happen; he was bound to shoot some good fish and end up on the cover eventually ;) well done mate! Tim McDonald with two magnificent Large Mouth Nannygai - 10.5 and 11kg - photograph by John Featherstone

by Luke Randell

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B

enny and I had headed out to North Stradbroke for a weekend dive. After checking out the usual spots during the morning we had both landed nice Bluebarred Parrot but there was not much else around. We were both ready to head in, but on the way back I suggested to Benny we check out another spot (that I am sworn to secrecy about); a small piece of structure surrounded by sand I had only dived once in the past (unsuccessfully).

We sounded around in the 20 metres of water for a while to find the spot, eventually anchoring. After a morning of diving Benny did not look overly enthused about getting back in the water. I was recovering from a flu and had been having a bit of trouble

equalizing so someone was going to have to do the recon mission, so I said to Benny “Ah well, going to gear up or what?”.

Benny geared up and jumped in with his gun without a rig just to check out the area and make sure we were on the spot. Benny had swum about 15 metres from the boat and dived, he surfaced shouting ‘Cobia, Cobia, Cobia!’. Action stations; I blew up the Riffe floats, got a rigline ready for Benn, I geared up and also jumped in. I swam to the spot and dived to find around twenty Cobia up off the bottom and circling around, looking as usual, like a swarm of sharks.

In the past when I have seen Cobia just milling around I have taken my time to try and pick out the biggest one, only to have the Cobia mill, mill and mill away never to be seen again by the time it has taken to swing a gun around. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake again so this time after seeing the fish I did not hesitate, I picked out the nearest fish and shot. The shot was reasonably good and through the shoulder.

The fish didn’t take off like a Spanish or Wahoo but just kept swimming slowly but strongly, like it did not even notice the spear. Being only the two of us diving, I had to swim to the boat while holding the fish to retrieve a second gun for another shot.

The second shot must have just missed the spine and did not event seem to bother the fish too much, regardless, I was able to pull the fish in grabbing it with my legs. I only then realised I had forgotten to put my knife on in the rush to jump in (doh!). I managed to pull one of the spears through the fish and perform iki with the spear tip and hauled the fish onto the boat.

During all of this, Benny had put a shot into a fish and was calling out. I jumped back in with a second gun for him and swam over leaving my fish with spears and guns in-situ. Reaching Benny and his rigline, he explained he thought a large Groper he had seen in the area may have the fish! I felt the line and it certainly did feel like that, feeling heavy but with a bit of life.

After diving down it was obvious that he had shot a big fish and the fish had managed to snag itself on the only piece of structure in the area, but was otherwise just sitting there on the bottom slowly trying to swim.

After a quick conversation in the water with Benny we confirmed the best plan would be use the second gun, swim down, attach this to his float line, put in a second shot in the fish and after doing this then cut the mono for the first gun to get the fish free of the snag.

Benny went about successfully performing this operation while I returned to the boat to retrieve a third gun. Returning to Benny he had managed to pull the fish up from the bottom into midwater with the fish still swimming strongly attached by one piece of mono. In order to land the fish quickly, I dived down while Benny held the fish up off the bottom to put in a kill shot . Excellent fish and excellent team work but full credit to Benny who had selected a larger fish from the school. While all this was going on, one huge Cobia constantly remained in the area, all lit up and circling around.

After boating his fish Benny mentioned that we had ‘company’ and that it may be best not to get in the water again. I surmised this may have been the mother of all Cobia who had come in for a look.

After the rush of these fish, we thought about

getting another but wisely thought better of it, how much Cobia do you need to eat at once anyway!?

Admittedly we did have a quick look around just to confirm whether this could have been a big Cobe or a shark, but all the fish seemed to have departed the area. Benny’s fish was 24.5 kilograms, mine around 18 kilograms.

Later that week the crew (Guy Wood, Tim Neilson, Benny Teufel, Brandon Widdett from NZ and I) headed out to Moreton Island. It was a week day and couple of us had commitments to get back to later in the day so we only planned for a quick morning expedition. Sea conditions were fair but vis was good at around 25-30 metres.

We had dived the far North reefs and there was not a lot around except Yellowtail Kings and Brandon landed a reasonable one of these.

Later in the morning we were diving a trawler sized wreck laying in 20 plus metres of water surrounded by sand. The current was such that you could make very slow headway but there was no way you could then dive to the depths required so drift diving was necessary. You could make out the wreck as a dark blur.

On the first drift we jumped in and I had descended, surveying one end of the wreck for fish.

It was only after approaching the bottom that out of the corner my eye I caught sight of a large fish laying on the bottom on the sand to my left. It was beyond me to swim over to it at that depth but as I looked over Tim had obviously seen it as well and was hovering just above the fish (which I later confirmed he had seen it from the surface- excellent eyesight).

He delivered a good shot and upon surfacing I asked if he needed a second shot to which he replied he would be right.

We didn’t put the fish on the scales, gutting it in the water to preserve the eating qualities, but a few days after, at Benny’s we reckoned it was easily around 25-27kgs.

That day, we also landed Yellowtail Kingfish, Estuary Cod, Parrotfish and a 4kg Mangrove Jack among others. All in all a pretty good week!

Luke Randell Secretary, Brisbane Undersea Club Inc luke@kmsplatt.com Photos (T) Benny | (M) Tim | (BL) Luke Mangrove Jack | (BR) Luke

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EYE ON

by Chris Harding

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ear after year I had watched in envy as some of my best mates travelled North to Queensland and the Coral Sea, and year after year I would see their pictures and watch their video’s of Dogtooth Tuna, Sailfish and giant Wahoo. I was still at school and I would dream about this magical place called the Coral Sea where the fish are thick, the sharks are plentiful, and vowed, one day that I would travel there myself. I told myself that this year, 2007, the year after my schooling, was my year to spear some of my goals. Among these goals were Wahoo and Dogtooth Tuna.

Ant, Timmy and I had been training with Sydney Freedivers Club between 3 and 5 days a week in the pool doing underwater laps (dynamic apnea) to improve our depth and bottom times as we were hunting tuna in mostly 50 metres of water. We saw dramatic results and with everything that the NSYG does, we became extremely competitive and soon we had all completed our goal of a 100 metre dynamic.

The first day of steaming out to Kenn Reef felt like it took forever. We amused ourselves by surfing on gear tubs along the back deck and told the usual stories of big fish seen, captured and lost on past trips.

Boredom set in at around 8am and we spent the next 13 hours triple checking all our gear, sleeping and sitting in the sun. Our cabin

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went to sleep early and we set our alarms for 4:30am to hopefully steal the first tinny that hit the water.

We suited up before anyone else and we had rights to the first tinny. As we putted away from the Booby Bird all hands went into the middle of the tinny and the cry from Ant, Judge, Timmy and I of “GOOOO TEAM” was heard by all aboard.

I gazed down at the water and could clearly make out reef structure and fish species. I had never dived in 50-70 metres visibility and all I could think about while looking down were the words Ted and so many other people told me “Get Closer!”

Ant was first boaty so we all bailed into the water.

I set my teasers to 17 metres and gave them a few sharp tugs. I remember looking around and thinking to myself “25 degree water, 50 metres vis, I’m finally here, in the Coral Sea.” On this drift I shot my first fish, a 5kg Jobfish.

We drifted out a little wider on our second drift and thanks to Judge, deployed a sufficient amount of burley into the water. Within minutes the sharks turned up but they were on their best behaviour. It wasn’t long until the tuna made an appearance. I looked down and saw one at first, then three, and then the school. Ant descended to about 25 metres and put a good shot into what looked like a +30kg Tuna. Before it had even finished half its run it was vapourized by a big Silver-tip Whaler. As I attempted to make a dive on the school my heart was pounding with so much excitement that I could only make it down to my teasers and the Tuna were staying deep. I hit the surface and told my mind to calm itself. I watched Ant dive again, his gun fired, and a large silver flash darted erratically in no particular direction. It was the first Tuna for the trip.

The next dive I was calmer and clear headed. I

THE PRIZE slid down towards Ant’s stoned Tuna. While descending, I glanced at the bottom and noticed a larger Tuna on its way up to check out its injured friend. I stayed on my direct course down to Ant’s fish and like a lost puppy the large Tuna continued on his route and we met. I was so focused on this one fish that I didn’t notice I was tangling myself up in the already shot Tuna’s shooting line. I may have even held onto the line to prevent myself from sinking further and stay completely still. The fish swam directly towards me and turned perfectly to give me a broad side shot. I let my spear fly out of my 3 rubber custom Rob Allen railgun and with an almighty THUD the spear hit the fish next to the dorsal fin. The fish headed towards the deep and for some reason I began to follow. My brand new gun hadn’t released off the breakaway, instead the mono wrapped itself around one of the rubbers. I quickly realised that this was not a battle I was going to win and parted ways with my gun as I kicked towards sweet oxygen. One more look down and I saw the Tuna head for the bottom, stop, flare its gills and regurgitate its last meal before disappearing into the blue with my gun.

A thousand thoughts ran through my mind as I hit the surface. Had the shot gone all the way through? Was it a good shot? Where the hell was my gun? Scrambling to my two extreme floats which were getting towed away at a tremendous speed, I grabbed and yelled deliriously to anyone who could hear me that I’d just shot a big one.

Timmy and Ant were trying to keep up but failed. I could see my gun in the distance floating towards the surface.

“Please tow me over my gun when it reaches the surface” I thought. As asked, the gun surfaced right next to me and was passed into the boat out of harms way.

The power of the fish was amazing and I could feel my bungee stretching through my hands. He played nicely and started to slow as I shortened my bungee by clipping it onto the floats. Still a little delirious I looked to Ant and asked’ “Hey, should I put a second shot in?” I looked back down and the fish had rolled on its back and began floating to the surface. I swam down to claim my prize, grabbing onto the tail with both hands and hauled it to the surface, violently shaking it on the way up. It was big. Much bigger than any other fish I had shot. Probably even double the size of my next biggest fish.

As we got it onto the tinny we looked over to see Brad, our guest from the US holding up his catch from their boat no more then 50 metres away. A 25kg Dogtooth Tuna! It was all happening at once.

Nevertheless I was boat boy for the rest of that session, and even though I sat in the tinny roasting with my wetsuit on, and getting the worst sunburn of my life on my legs and face, I did it with a massive grin. I couldn’t believe that on the second drift of the first session I had taken my goal fish for the trip! Back on board the Booby Bird my first Dogtooth Tuna weighed in at 35kgs. I was stoked.

Later on in that trip we managed to get onto the Wahoo and knocked another fish off my list by stoning a 27.5kg specimen. All four of us got them on this session with Timmy getting one the same size and Ant and Judge getting them similar sizes. Timmy and I had also being wearing D3’s and with the help of all our training we both set new PBs of 31.6metres and 32.4metres. (Yes Timmy beat me but that just means I’ll have to beat him next time! And yes, we were watched by our safety diver mates during these dives).

I would like to thank Timmy, Ant and Judge for putting us in the right spots to get the opportunity at

these fish, Ted at Fathom diving for giving us many seminars on how to take fish at the Coral Sea, North Shore Underwater Club for the hours of spearfishing training and most importantly the North Shore Young Guns for being great spearo’s and mates!

Photos (O) Chris with 35kg Dogtooth Tuna (T)Chris w/ 27.5kg Wahoo (B) The NSYG with a some big Wahoo

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Yellowfin Tuna hunting off Cape Point, Cape Town, South Africa.

By Steven Benjamin

The time had finally come for me to enter the water. It was dark and cold, it should have been crystal clear and luke-warm. It felt more like diving into the cold kelp filled inshore waters of Cape Point than the warm Agulhas water one expects 27 miles off Cape Town over the edge of the continental shelf. But in I jumped with a huge smile on my face, a chance to just swim and watch Yellowfin Tuna.

The reason for me being alone in the water swimming in the chum line with nothing but my camera and wide eyes was that I was a helping guest on a trip chartered by a Croatian spearfisherman travelling South Africa. Only one fish was to be shot at a time, as these fish are extremely powerful and could easily drag diver’s off in different directions, leaving the skipper with a big problem. You don’t want the boat to lose you in the middle of the ocean. For this reason I was to be given second chance at a fish if there was time. The Croatian diver was at this point getting changed very tentatively aboard the ski boat, not looking very exited.

But that was the last thing on my mind, I was completely engrossed in what was happening below me.

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The morning had started slowly due to the suspect weather conditions. The wind had been steadily increasing from the early hours and had seemed to peak at 5am to 20 knots, but it was now 5:30 and it seemed to have dropped to 10 knots.

The skipper made the call and off we went, put the boat in the water and headed out. It was a 2 hour run to the tuna grounds off of Cape Point. Those hours flew past with spectacular views of coast. We came across life as soon as we left the bay, flocks of sea birds picking bait fish off the oceans surface, sunfish warming themselves up, seals heading out to feed, other boats heading out fishing and massive oil tankers headed for Cape Town harbor. The ocean was alive.

As time passed we noticed that the freezing inshore waters were not relenting to the warm Agulhas as expected and 20 miles out there was still no visibility and the 14°C, at least that was better than the 10°C water we had just passed through. This was not unexpected, I was told by our skipper. These conditions were typical of the Easterly winds that had blown for the past few days. When we arrived over the canyon the water was warmer 16°C and a bit cleaner, just good enough.

We had been drifting and chumming for most of the afternoon, trying our best to chase away bait stealing birds and sharks, but it was a losing battle, one we could never expect to win. The surface was alive with a handful of 1.5m long Blue Sharks, who showed no fear toward us. The air was filled with Shearwaters, Petrels and Albatrosses, all of which wanted a free meal. It was only when three other boats lay in our area that the birds spread their attention and allowed us a moment to get our baited circle hooks into the water. We eventually landed two Yellowfin Tuna, both around 40kg, and lost a third much larger fish nearly on the gaff. As fun a catching tuna on rod is, I wanted to be with them in their element.

So here I was swimming down the chum line alone and gunless. The visibility was not good, about 10 – 12m and green. But even in my small field of vision I could see 6 Blue Sharks ranging from 60cm to 1.5m all cruising close to the surface greedily eating our chum. Instantly they were curious as to what I was and without fear one bumped into me from behind, others I just pushed away. One even came from behind while I lay on the surface and gave me a nip on the hand. I would later have to get five stitches for that shark’s inquisitiveness, but it didn’t matter they were really just milling around waiting to get fed and not really interested in me.

It wasn’t very long before I didn’t even notice the sharks and became completely fixated on the 10 or so huge Yellowfin Tuna that were speeding

through the water below me. Their massive bodies just flying effortlessly through the water, bright yellow sickles curving backwards. I was mesmerized; it is a different experience just watching. I could just float mid water and see them for what they are without that tunnel vision one gets while hunting.

I surfaced a few times to let the skipper know what was going on and see how our Croatian friend was doing. Eventually, he entered the water and it was evident that his diving conditions in Croatia must be different to what he was now faced with, as he seemed a bit uncomfortable. After half an hour in the water he took his mask off and looking green around the gills, he handed me the gun: I didn’t need a second invitation. In my hand I held a 1.3 Freedivers bluewater gun and behind me lay 30m of 10mm bungee cord attached to a compressed foam “body board”, just the right gear for the job. Game on !!

My first dive with the intent of shooting a fish saw 5 fish come up and quickly consume every piece of chum. I tried tracking the massive fish but it is incredible how fast they move, being so exited didn’t help. I couldn’t get a shot in. The skipper put in another handful of chum, this time I kept my eye on one piece of bait. The tuna came in quickly feeding all around me. They left my piece alone, it was still too close to me. The bait fell slowly and I saw one fish come in and suddenly turn away, still too close.

As the bait was about 4m away from me a fish came in, opened its mouth and turned to dive. I pulled the trigger at the apex of its turn and saw the spear hit centre. In a blur of movement it was off as I watched bungee cord bowing down into the deep and I scrambled for the body board. I slowly pulled in the bungee 30cm at a time, the yachting cleats digging into the bungee and holding the fish. It was hard work but the gear was doing the real work, within 10 minutes the fish was near the surface. A second headshot was put in and it was over. As I gripped the fish the shear size hit me and it was hard to believe that I had finally shot one of these great fish.

The journey home was full of smiles and laughter, despite the wind picking up to 30 knots and feeling like the boat was going to take off. On the scale the

fish weighed in at 62.7kg. Not at all the biggest fish to be taken, I’m sure fish of over 100kg will be shot again this season, but it was my fish and that was all that mattered. My Freediver fins and guns had done a wonderful job and I would recommend their gear to anyone. I was so grateful to get the opportunity to see these magical fish underwater and look forward to doing it all again.

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I had hit the Spanish Mackerel a bit further back than normal and was taking my time playing it.

The fish had dragged me away from the edge into deeper water. In the clear water you could easily see the Mackerel fighting at 22 metres. To my amazement, a Dogtooth Tuna that looked huge even at depth screamed in and hit the struggling fish. The Mackerel broke free and the last I saw, it was heading for deeper water with the tuna in close pursuit – this is certainly not Darwin!

East Timor is closer to Darwin than most Territory towns, definitely has clearer water and with the resurgence in travel after the resent unrest, it has become a reasonable cost destination. So when I was offered the chance to travel with some scientists that were going to undertake a study for the Timor Leste Government, I took some holidays and went along for the adventure.

Now Darwin is a laid back place and sometimes things do take a while, but Timor, is even more laid back. So while we waited for an extra day for sampling gear to clear customs, I switched down a gear and took the opportunity to re-dive the drop-off under the headland at the edge of Town. It seems there are some simple basics to finding what we consider reasonable fish in Timor, they are look for high current areas that have reasonable reef below about ten metres. These areas tend to be beyond the teams of local divers who drift dive the reef systems with simple sperarguns and goggles chasing varied small reef fish.

The current was a respectable two knots and I sped through the lumps at 15 – 18 metres and through the fishy zone glimpsed Maori Sea Perch and assorted snappers. The fish life was down from my last drift two years ago. I guess you should expect that on the edge of Dili. It was good to get wet and the water was clear as always.

Dining in Dili seafood restaurants is a treat. Just make sure to check the fish that you are going to be served, as you may find a difference of opinion with the cook over what is a good fish. A quick chat can mean getting a fresh Coral Trout instead of the local Silver Drummer variety for the same standard price.

Timor works on US dollars and a good tip is to bring plenty of low denomination notes as making change can be interesting once you are out of Dili.

The plan was to leave Dili early and meet our workboat at Com about 200 kilometres East of Dili by road but only about 100 kilometres by boat. After breakfast we waited patiently and got underway around one in the afternoon. The drive is spectacular and really gets you excited with lots of white beaches, cliffs and drop-offs to look at as you drive along which

is good as the trip takes 4 – 5 hours.

Driving into Com is fantastic, the main village is up on the side of a hill so you really can only see the coastal strip of a resort and a few other houses plus a break wall and jetty that drops into a natural harbour.

The resort has the feel of a Flipper movie set but is comfortable and has a great vista. Of course the work boat would not be making it today as the gear still had not cleared customs – maybe tomorrow so

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I planned for an early morning swim direct out from the resort.

Entering from the resort steps I paddled out over the lagoon to the fringing reef about 40 metres offshore, there is about 30 metres of reef at 5 -18metres before the reef and sand slips away to 100 metres and to about 300metres 500metres from shore. We had seen Sailfish and Yellowfin Tuna jumping on the reef edge while we had dinner, so

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