barry paxman
The area between Cervantes and Dongara is blessed with miles of rugged limestone reefs. They are a favourite haunt of many Perth based divers as they offer quality fish with little boat traffic. Like a whole West coast they run “hot and cold” in terms of fish life, so it pays to tag along with a club or experienced spearo, and not many people know them better than Barry Paxman. Barry has been diving for over 45 years and was a true pioneer of pelagic spearing here in Western Australia. At a shade over 60 Barry still out-dives and out-fishes most of the younger guys. He’s the kind of guy who likes getting new people into our pastime, as the 60 strong membership of Bluewater Freedivers of WA shows (www.bluewaterfreediversofwa. com). Don’t expect him to shoot the fish for you but his knowledge will certainly put you in the right area. His advice is normally “Stop whinging, get back in the water, you won’t get a decent fish sitting in the boat!” – Oh I also recommend hanging on when the boat starts, the years haven’t affected his throttle hand. So with this advice ringing in my ears I jumped into a sloppy SW sea fuelled by a 2m swell – vis was, well, like swimming in a bowl full of stringy snot. Hovering at 15m, staring into the gloom, I’m willing a mackerel to appear, nothing, nothing, nothing. I start my ascent and see a fish approaching some burley, Baldchin? no, Snapper and a good one. I’m out of breath so keep heading to the surface casually waving my finger at it as if to say “next time buddy”. Big mistake! Barry doesn’t miss my gesture and knows something is up. I watch him dive and the snapper does a lap around a small lump but can’t resist one last bit of burley. This brings it straight underneath “the black menace” who has no trouble dispatching it with his trusty Edge / Barracuda reel combo. It’s a good fish close to 6kg, “typical” I think to myself. A few minutes later I see four white lumps rising off the bottom. I can’t ID them and by the time the white lumps reveal themselves as the nobby heads of more snapper, a diver has mysteriously appeared midwater. Whack!, Barry again with an identical fish. Today is not going well. Fifteen minutes later all is quiet and I’m pretty annoyed at being outgunned by a 60 year old (although most WA divers are used to this by now). Finally, I catch a glimpse of a torpedo shape going over a sand patch and dive. The Spanish Mackerel commences its predictable circle and my 1.4m Edge makes no mistake. The fish takes a bit of line from my Barracuda reel but I get it sorted pretty quickly and an average size mackerel (12kg) joins two lovely Pink Snapper in the boat. With deteriorating conditions that just about wrapped up the day, it won’t be the last time you’ll find me searching this maze of reef systems- you never know what will appear on the next ledge! - Simon Longbottom
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Whitsunday Escape
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Deliverance
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Yellowfin
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Year of the Spanish
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Editorial Letters Spear?Tips Product Review Koster’s Kitchen GreatShot08 MPA Spearo’s Gallery Spearing Sydney
Madness
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You’ll never know
Mint Conditions
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Cobia-Cobia
King George Whiting
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y the look on the Panga driver’s face it was easy to see he was as unimpressed with the giant tunas in the bottom of the boat as we were ecstatic. Having travelled so far and put so many hours in the water chasing big tunas it was nice to have two onboard at the same time even if they weren’t the World Record (now 350+ lbs!!) we were looking for. Despite seeing a few dozen of these fish come over the rail in the past few years, there is nothing quite like the feeling of seeing a thousand purple/blue backs below you in the open ocean. At first you think your eyes are fooling you. You know it’s too deep for there to be any reef in sight. Maybe a cloud passed overhead? Then you see a single silver flash as one of the ranks rolls on his side and reveals a massive school passing in the depths far below. Your buddy beside you has seen the same and is already sinking into the depths below as you try and breathe up quickly before the show is over. Badass Freediver you think you are, with 2:45 second breath holds shooting Bream in 50 feet of water, all goes out the window. Your heart rate is through the roof and you are pushing deep towards the seemingly unmoving school only to find that at eighty feet they have seen you coming and change course just keeping out of range and swirling you like traffic at a roundabout. The yellow finlets of the juveniles ten feet away seek to blur your vision but looking beyond you can pick out the ever increasing size of the fish at the back and bottom of the school from the tell-tale length of the so-called Allison or Sickle fins. The best of the fish swaggering through with broad shoulders and partially opened mouths, big enough to swallow a basketball, have sickles that extend fully to the tips of their tail. Air? What is that? Your 5 banded tuna gun now extended you push even deeper and let fly aiming a few inches behind the top of the curve of the gill plate along the lateral line. As if in slow motion the shaft reaches the fish and amazingly hits a full three feet farther back on the fish than you had been aiming! Damn these fish are faster and bigger than you could ever imagine! Still on the lateral line the heavy 3/8” shaft punches into the dense meat and fully penetrates the two foot thick fish. Rocketing off into the depths there are no bubbles just the heavy thumping of the monsters tail and the other tunas in the school blazing off into the distance. Pumping for the surface your 100ft bungee comes tight and your first float blows past you and begins to crush as it disappears into the depths. Within seconds the 25ft section of bungee has tripled in length and heads below the waves as if filled with lead and not air. Air! Fighting off the stars and filling your lungs you reach out and are just able to get a hold of the passing third 35 litre float as it pulls you back below
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Air! Fighting off the stars and filling your lungs you reach out and are just able to get a hold of the passing third 35 litre float as it pulls you back below the surface. Let go let go let go!!!! Fighting your hunters instinct to stay in contact with your gear you painfully release the buoy and scratch back to the surface again watching it slip into the blue. the surface. Let go let go let go!!!! Fighting your hunters instinct to stay in contact with your gear you painfully release the buoy and scratch back to the surface again watching it slip into the blue. Lungs filled, you follow on the surface watching the last of your floats 50 feet below heading in the direction of what has to be the sharkiest side of the pinnacle. A glance above the surface proves the craziness of the whole situation as you realize that in the eight foot swells fifty miles offshore your little camo’ed head above the surface is nearly invisible to the Panga driver dutifully following your buddy who is headed in the opposite direction fighting a fish of his own. Not a good feeling. Back below your first float is slowly rising and still swimming hard you are able to reach it as it breaks the surface. Now being towed along you can take your first rest and prepare for the battle ahead.
The tension on the bungee below you is slowly decreasing and you begin pulling and clipping the bungee using your second Longline (Tuna) clip attached to your last buoy. Within a few minutes your second float has surfaced but is still moving hard against the waves dropping a few feet below every few seconds and filling your snorkel with saltwater that burns your already strained lungs. Clipping the second and third float together you rest again before resuming the pulling and clipping of bungee slowly bringing the first float to within a few feet of the surface. Another glance around and you can see the boat a full half mile away on the crest of another huge swell and pray they’ve seen the orange floats and bright red dive flags now on the surface. First float in hand you rest again and then smoothly clip your last float to the bungee ahead of
the first so that your third is now your first and the rest of your gear can trail behind as you continue to pull and clip the 100ft bungee. With the big clip in one hand you squeeze and with the opposite hand pull gaining a foot or two with each effort. After twenty minutes your hands are beginning to cramp and it seems the closer you get to the fish the more he pulls you under water. Not wanting to put too much pressure on the fish but also tiring of being dragged under water you grab the second float and clip it to the first now keeping the fish from taking you under any more. The ensuing cluster of gear on the surface is one of the most dangerous things you may see in all your years of diving. As the fish comes into sight at 80 feet below, you are slowly dragged in a circle and your gear on the surface begins forming a giant rat nest of floats and bungee’s with your trailing tuna gun
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Ant Judge - Solid Dogtooth Tuna
by Wayne Judge It must be madness to target one of the most powerful fish on a coral reef and perhaps in the world and place a spear in one, only metres from coral bommies, knowing they are ruthless and dirty fighters. To dive often over 25 metres deep on a breath to get a chance at placing such a spear; to watch, sometimes helpless as your 35 litre floats are ripped below the surface. We pay thousands of dollars for trips and hundreds of dollars for equipment often returning with little more than bent and lost spears. It is not for everyone but those few short minutes of ballistic adrenaline pumping action is a heady brew and like many I am hooked. For the last 6 years there has been a team of us from the North Shore Underwater Club who have been returning to the Coral Sea off the coast of Central Queensland, year after year targeting these great fish. Ted from Extreme Spearfishing has been taking people on trips to these outer reefs for 17 years. Over this time he has seen some great fish taken. He has had his share of success, but more importantly he has constantly worked on ways to help people take these fish. Because he runs these trips it enables him to present a system where the less experienced spearfishers have a good chance of taking Dogtooth Tuna. We have worked with Ted over the recent years, trying things, seeing what works and discarding anything that doesn’t give improved results. The following is a brief description of the system we have been using to good results. It is by no means, the only way to target these fish and is presented here only as a workable system. Much of this is commonsense; techniques known and practiced by the more experienced and it is included here so those with less experience can get a better picture of what to do. TARGET: Dogtooth Tuna/Gymnosarda unicolo. This fish is actually closely related to the Bonito. It inhabits coral reefs, usually solitary or in small schools, feeding on smaller schooling fish or squid. They are a beautiful silver fish with a white dot on their tails but a huge old battle-scarred Dogtooth, with its protruding conical teeth and big eye watching you, would be a great candidate as “the fish from hell”.
Preparation
If you were to be targeting these fish on a trip, preparation must start early. Even a 15kg Dogtooth can pull a 35 litre inflatable float below and out of sight. This species is immensely powerful and your equipment must be in top condition. My advice on a trip is, don’t leave it to chance; work out who you want on your dory early. On my first Coral Sea trip I was descending stretched out on what would have been my first Dogtooth Tuna. It was hypnotized by my teasers, I was just about in range when a spear shot from behind, flew past me and stopped two metres from the fish. The tuna disappeared along with my faith in that spearfisher. Ask around and you will find once you get out to sea the first problem is: people. This comes in the form of no or little team-work or complete selfishness, a dedication to ones own success even to the detriment of the success of your mates. However, when you have a team working together everyone gets better fish.
Teamwork
There are 4 people in the team: three divers in
the water and the person with boat duties for that drift. The boatie has the hardest and most important job; it is his job to look after the divers. He must make sure they do not get run over by other dories and he must always be watching ready to assist a diver. The fish and the sharks are too big for any delay when a diver is signalling. It is his job also to cut and throw burley aswell as retrieve teasers floating away. There is no falling asleep or even line fishing as this is vital for the safety of the divers and the success of the team. Teamwork in the water is a major point: the whole system breaks down when even one person goes off by himself, or tries to take a fish that is clearly going towards another diver. You must be able to trust your team mate not to poach your fish and you must never be tempted. It is good to go with people whom you wish would take big fish, like close friends. The divers drift in the pattern of a triangle; there is a safety factor here too. The triangle can expand or contract as necessary. With agitated sharks about, the triangle would be smaller and divers watching each other’s backs. When drifting, the triangle should not be so small that a Tuna would feel threatened swimming through the middle of it, nor should it be so big that you cannot see hand signals from your dive buddies.
Fishing
When hunting Dogtooth Tuna you want to be drifting in a current. If there is no current then find one. Often, the faster the current the more Tuna you will see. Each diver should have their own teasers attached to a small float. The depth that teasers are suspended would depend on how fired-up the fish are. If the tuna are on the feed and especially if the water is warm, 26 degrees and hotter, you may not have to put your teasers deep to get fish approaching and even hitting them. However, in the last few years the majority of the time, the fish have showed only a slight interest in the teasers. We had to put the flashing plates down around 18 metres to get the fish to approach them and even then they
would come in at around 25 metres or deeper. The more you move your teasers in the water, the more results you will get. If you are not actually diving you should be working your teasers. It is not unusual to have sore arms after the first day or two of teasing. The boatie handles most of the burley. If you shoot a fish for burley you hand it to him so he can distribute it to the divers as you drift. We have found the most successful line of burley is similar to the chum line of a line fisher: two or three pieces to each diver every so often. Too much burley will fire up the sharks and you will start losing fish. Keep the burley bite size. You don’t want any piece that can be shaken or ripped at by a shark. Have you ever noticed that as soon as one shark starts that head shaking ripping motion, sharks appear from everywhere? On the other hand you can have one or two sharks calmly following you and swallowing a bit of burley now and then, and still land fish. When a target fish comes into sight the diver who sees it should point at it. This alerts the other divers that tuna are present. It is quite usual for a fish to go from one teaser to another quite quickly and when one tuna is seen often there is more. The action is: one diver down at a time. If a school of tuna came through and all three divers dived, the usual scenario is that the school would spook. It is far more successful to allow the closest diver to descend and take the shot. If he is successful it can give easier shots for the second and even third divers.
Phone a Friend
Each species of fish have habits that make them easier or harder to take and the Dogtooth is no exception. Dogtooth Tuna often approach other speared fish, no doubt with the intention of eating them. Time and time again we have had this happen and anyone not ready for this can miss a major chance. In addition to this, a speared Dogtooth will bring in other tuna, often bigger ones. We use this to our advantage. The scenario goes like this: A fish is shot. As it fights, the other divers close in on it waiting for the
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Photo by Tyania Lee Diffin
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or those that have experienced spearfishing on the outer reefs of the Coral Sea you will understand the lure that brings me back most years diving in these bountiful, pristine waters. For those of you yet to have a Coral Sea experience, you don’t know what you are missing out on.
The dream materializes
I reminisce back to the 80’s when I began to hear of the exploits aboard Rob Lowden’s mighty vessel Odin from gurus such as Les Gleaves (who held the Dogtooth record at 55kg for some time), Geoff Harris and Richard McClymont, and seeing their photographs of huge Dogtooth Tuna and Maori Wrasse and gigantic reef species that resembled fish life from other planets. I began to dream about these huge, ferocious fish with big teeth that make a Red Mowie resemble a shiatsu, the stories, photos and my own vivid imagination made a young impressionable spearo like myself go weak at the knees. I wanted to turn my dreams about the wild frontier that lay off the shores of Queensland into reality, so began the meticulous planning with the purchasing, and making of equipment. The excitement of comparing your single band 1m arbalete to the impressive 3 band 1.3m hunk of railway sleeper
and 3/8” shaft that compliments it is a great feeling, one that includes the sensation of trepidation as you ponder if you are going to lose teeth firing this behemoth, to realising that you could so easily ‘lose’ your prized possession to a large fish quite easily (breakaways were not so big back then). There is the research into the fish species, not just being able to identify the fish, but to gain an understanding of the symbiotic relationships fish species have with each other, and to complement that the gaining of a better understanding of conditions out there, that is, to know where to find the fish when currents and other natural conditions prevail upon you. All of this you cannot achieve without the help of your mates and peers. Spearos like North Shore’s Bob McComb and Ted Lougher were a huge assistance with gear and fish reading tips, and I can still recall one part of Mark Coly’s advice to me ‘… take as many spears as you can you’ll need them!’ Mark was right, you do tend to bend and lose a few.
The reality
With all this help it still cannot set you up for the epic task at hand, and I dipst me lid to every man that earns his living from the sea, it is tough out there! Those of you who have been out on a long range
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fter reading about the wild west for the last two years in Queensland I decided at the start of this year it was time to get my act together and come see the rugged coastline for myself. After much procrastination, Will Gunzburg, Derek Walker and I finally get our act together to depart Perth and head up North……. somewhere. I give work the standard 5 days notice (thank God they let me go) and we depart for our trip at 11pm on Sunday night after another long shift at the good ol’ Ocean Beach Hotel. Hopes are high, with multiple spearing mags being read on the trip up and after a good 12 hours we finally arrive in Carnarvon. Day 1: After a quick chat to a few locals, we continue to head North to Ningaloo Marine Park. The second the car is unpacked, we kit up and prepare the boat (I remember thinking that if I don’t shoot something soon I am going to scream). Upon launching, a pro-fishing boat returns from a trip with a nice haul of Spanish, a good sign we all think. After a quick word and some warning of multiple resident, overgrown Bronzies we head out and to our disappointment struggle to find any decent country. Although this is the case, we still manage to plug a few nice, dumb, Baldchin Groper (my first) and have an A grade dinner. Day 2: The decision is made to move further North to Ningaloo station. Here we have a satisfying dive (shooting a few School Mackerel) but make the decision to drive back to Carnarvon to pick up some drugs to sort out Derek and my colds. We camp out on some salt flats and manage to barely survive the night by blowing up our canned dinner (just put a dint in it Gunna says) and find the lid and can the next morning some 40m apart. Day 3: We re-stock supplies and head up North once again, this time on the highway, lacking our previously high enthusiasm. After an hour drive we arrive at a new station with high hopes of a clean start. The weather is MINT! to say the least. Gates are opened and closed, camp is found, gear is dumped and once again the boat is ready for action. A decent beach break is smashing home so our timing will have to be impeccable. Our timing is not impeccable; thank God we have an unsinkable tough duck (The Mighty Duck). We head out and
find a spot that looks good, I don the goggles and stick my head over the side of the boat to be met by the pleasant site of a cruising Spanish, which causes me to fall in with excitement. Anchor away. After about 30min and seeing some nice fish I hear that unmistakable scream. I swim out to Will and see he has a nice Spanish on, I second shoot it for good measure and we soon have it boated, later being weighed at 14kg. We then call it a day and head home to set up camp. First day, fresh start, fresh fish, MINT! Day 4: Still exhausted from driving, changing camps and diving we take it easy and have a short yet fulfilling dive. Later that day we explore some nearby cliffs that give us a great advantage spot to view some more isolated reefs that were not viewable from ground level. Day 5: What was to become the day of days started out like every other day on the trip, breakfast, kitting up and dealing with the shore break whilst singing the ‘Baywatch’ theme song at the top of our lungs. It’s a quick trip out for an exploratory mission to our later happily named ‘Maddog Reef’ to be met by the awesome sight of Cobia lazily swirling on the surface. Excitement is high and we all opt to approach the school in unison to increase our chance of taking down a few good fish. Upon approaching the school no Cobia are spotted, but within minutes we see many nice Spangled Emperor and are immediately impressed with the sea mounts beneath us rising from 15m to 4m. Once realizing I have fallen in to the age old trap of forgetting the weight belt, I opt to hang around for another 5min as I am mesmerized by our new found reef. Will then tells me that he just saw a large Spanish porpoising through the swell just ahead of us. Sure enough as we begin to head toward the spot were it was seen and a gigantic Spanish charges past me. With little time to think, I rip myself underwater in the most un-relaxing dive I have ever had (remembering I have no weight belt) and sink some steel into the beast, penetrating the shoulder and exiting the pectorial fin. For a split second I think I have missed the largest target that has ever presented itself to me as he continues to swim, relatively unphased. When that split second passes all hell breaks loose, he completes a loop around me and straight past Will then heads out to
A decent beach break is smashing home so our timing will have to be impeccable. Our timing is NOT impeccable; thank God we have an unsinkable tough duck!
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‌just as I was about to push off the bottom I caught a glimpse of a sizeable school of KG making a wide pass, they had arrived!
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eeking one eye open, I slowly begin to entertain the thought of actually rolling out of bed and setting off for the oceanic kingdom in search of Kings. These Kings aren’t large powerful rulers that raid skittish baitfish; these Kings are delicate, quaint royalty that require a humble approach; quiet, nonthreatening movement, or the alarm will be raised and the royalty evacuated. Favouring the cooler waters of Australia, King George Whiting inhabit the coastline from Southern NSW to Southern Western Australia, including Victoria, South Australia and the North-east tip of Tasmania. King George Whiting are a superb table fish that rate highly by the most stringent standards, many Victorian spearos will not pass up an opportunity to knock off a couple KGW and will stretch breath holds just to get a chance at these succulent fish, though these inquisitive quarry can prove particularly challenging when working in a strong current, as is the case in the Southern part of Port Phillip Bay. Unfortunately, Victoria doesn’t hold some of the larger specimens that haunt SA and WA (mainly due to the spawning migration), but we do see the odd fish reach the kilo mark, with the current Victorian record standing at 1190grams which was taken at Portland in 1975 (certain Victorian divers have come close to breaking this record, but unfortunately have fallen just a tad short…cough…Brett Illingworth… cough!) When marking KGW as the primary species to capture, Victorian’s tend to favour a 90cm to 1m gun, 6.6mm to 7mm spear, with a single 16mm rubber,
and a personal preference to use either a single point or pranger (but I will not start that deliberation, both have advantages). I had agreed to an early morning start with Aaron Crocombe, and lying here reflecting on King George spawning cycles wasn’t helping me stay on time for my dive. Our choice of location was the centraleastside of Port Phillip Bay, which includes areas such as Mt Eliza, Mornington and Mt Martha. Each of these areas have been proven whiting grounds in the past, and we were hoping that with the convenience of a boat the two of us could cover a fair bit of ground in search of schools of King George. Arriving at 5:30am in Mornington, the streets were quiet; the busyness of the weekend hadn’t started yet with only a couple street lights illuminating the way to the boat ramp. Most people were still dead to the world, or stumbling home after a night on the turps, keen spearos on the other hand are soaping up wetsuits and getting ready for a day on the water. Parking the car, I groggily grabbed my dive tub, put my fins under my arm, and balanced my speargun on top of everything, then proceeded in struggling over to the ramp. Aaron had already put the boat in the water and had been waiting for me to arrive “hey chief, sorry I’m late”, “no worries, jump in”, just like that we were on are way. We flew across the peaceful bay chatting about how the wind had really backed off during the night and was now only blowing slightly for the NE (which is off shore for this part of the bay). The reports had been positive during the week and we had high hopes for the first spot at Mt Eliza.
Pulling up to a shallow reef with scattered patches of weed and sand we were surprised to see a hazy 5-6m cloudiness to the water, though Port Phillip Bay is not renowned for its extraordinary visibility, we had anticipated “optimistically” 8-10m. Not to worry, the dirty water will hopefully give the KG added confidence in their approach. Sorting rig cords, floats, guns, fin etc was done in the most leisurely manner, no need to rush, plenty of weekend diving to be enjoyed without the added stress of ‘get-in, swim, swim , swim get-out’. Rolling off the side, the breaking sun was offering just enough light to hunt effectively, resident reef fish cruised unperturbed amongst the weed, while I scanned for my intended supper. However, the target was distinctly missing from the sand and weedline, and after a number of drops with nothing to show for it Aaron suggested we swim out a little wider to a patch of sea grass that occasionally produces Squid. Fresh calamari is rarely a topic of argument for me and I obliged him with an entourage to the grass bed. As we swam out wider the water became noticeably dirtier, and our previous 5-6m was now down to approximately 3m “okay this is the spot”, the grass runs from North to South and covers 40 square metres, “I’ll work this side you go left”. Dropping through the murk I reached the grass in 9m, then automatically went into squid mode, I put my head down and just let myself relax on the bottom, I thought about how the squid season was really over and all of the larger ones had definitely left the bay, after about 1:20min, I looked up to see a squadron of kilo sized squid floating mid-water, slowly moving
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