Underwater Hunting

16 March 2011

2011-03-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

Wednesday is usually the day Michael and I get to go spearing together. Recently we have added a third member to our pilgrimage. Dave, who has dived with us at the Classic for the past 2 years has relocated from Townsville to Coffs Harbour. Before the sun was anywhere near rising, we were busy preparing the boat and gear for a morning of diving. Launched from Arrawarra and the plan was to hunt wahoo. Spearos and fisher-folk have been having a royal time with these pelagic speedsters.

We found the bait concentrations and after anchoring up swam around to investigate. Viz was not fantastic, cloudy/smoky 15m, with a distinct dirty thermocline at between 15-18m. Recently there have been reports of a large inquisitive White Shark in the area and to say I was going into the dirty water with some trepidation was an understatement. While positioning myself for a dive, 2 wahoo shot passed underneath me. I was about to dive when a third, larger fish came along with a spear through it. Dave had drawn first blood but on reflection it appears the flopper on his spear closed and allowed the fish to escape. Michael loaded a wahoo that I was unaware of, a good fish at about 15kg. He had failed with a really big fish earlier, when his spear fell short of its target.

I kept diving next to the abundant bait, patiently waiting for the predators to approach from upcurrent. It was on one of these dives that I looked up toward the sunlight at the surface to see numerous wahoo shapes at the surface. Turning away from the fish I headed for the surface in a direction aimed at gradually closing the gap between me and the school. There must have been at least 50 fish all up at the surface. I kept the speargun close to my body to allow for rapid extention when the situation allowed. I kept swimming next to the school and when I thought the fish were within range I stopped swimming turned and selected a target. Curiosity overwhelmed their natural suspicion and several fish moved in to investigate me. I hoped the shot would hold and fired into my target, hitting it about halfway back to the dorsal fin from the head. The spear angled forward exiting close to the gills on the opposite side. In the blink of an eye the fish took off dragging the solid 9l float underwater on several occasions. I charged off after the float desperately trying to keep up, finding the float some 300m away, still on the surface. I began retrieving the limp line expecting to find an empty spear. Within 10 m of the speargun, the last dying kicks of the fish could be felt. At this stage Dave arrived and asked if I wanted a second shot on the fish. Hell, this was my first wahoo and I wanted it safe aboard and I willingly accepted the back-up which turned out to be totally unnecessary. Third wahoo I had shot and first landed.

Wahoo have not been difficult to approach. I learned well before I saw my first wahoo that they are naturally very curious. If you do something that does not intimidate them but arouses their curiosity, they will approach and allow a good holding shot. They have very delicate, soft flesh which means that anything other than a well placed shot will result in a lost fish which is a real waste. The first wahoo I encountered was south of the Big Island. A school of 3 wahoo approached with the biggest coming really close. I was using a borrowed gun and the spear was well aimed at the slow swimming fish but it fell short. The fish was much bigger than I initially had thought. The second fish was speared north of the Big Island, after one had been shot from a small school. As the first fish struggled, the school returned and I placed a wild shot. The fish headed north and I chased, finding the float some 1.2km north of where I had shot the fish. It was gone, having broken free or been sharked. The third wahoo was seen on a pinnacle in 10m of water, where it swam in on a flasher together with a massive Spanish mackerel. I thought the shot I made was good, not rushed and placed between the dorsal and anal fin like I would on a mackerel, only to have the fish tear of on its initial run. On Saturday I had seen a lot a wahoo when Michael got 2 and Kris took 1. Unfortunately even when I ignored them and turned away to decrease any intimidation, they still remained nervous. With my first wahoo safely landed I fully expect the next to be straight-forward!

12 March 2011

2011-03-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Great day of diving. Conditions are looking good and we have clean, warm water at all the deep areas. Started the morning at the Big Wash, took some time to get the drift right as there was a significant current. Just when we figured the correct drift, the fish appeared. Took a good Spanish mackerel that ended up with an aggressive GNS in tow. Eventually managed to wrestle it away from the shark but in the process the tail was bitten off and mot of one side was mauled.

Things just looked so good we had to look at our deepwater spots. The wahoo proved very friendly and Michael got 2, Kris took his first and I just ended up watching them swim away. Oh well, not every throw is a coconut.

Good weather pattern predicted for the next week and a warm pulse of water is on its way which should make the Classic a great opportunity for all the visiting divers.

20 February 2011

2011-02-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

We endured the effect of the mud after the Queensland floods, the after-effects of Yasi and then some tremendous southerly busters and now we have some really good conditions. Divers have been getting great bags of mackerel both Spanish and Spotted. There are large numbers of other pelagics around too and jewfish, wahoo, amberjack and cobia have made good shows. We still need to move around to find fish but that definitely beats having no diving at all.

We took a good bag of mackerel and amberjack about a week ago, north of the big island and even ended up missing out on jewfish, cobia and wahoo. There was still a lot of coral spawn and plankton in the water with quite a large number of blue-bottles around. In between the mack tuna, we also saw a number of yellowfin tuna, pity I was not carrying any burley. Trying to track these flighty fish underwater is virtually impossible.

There are odd days when the swell is too rough to head out but when it settles, you can be sure divers are out there. Even rock-hopping is paying dividends. There should be new club Best-of-the-Best leaders in pearl perch, Spanish and jewfish with some great fish landed on Friday.

Tursday last week had one diver coming in close contact with a White shark and a Tiger at the wash, so even the big predators are getting into the fish on the menu.

31 January 2011

2011-01-30T16:25:00.000-08:00

To say that I am royally pissed off is an understatement. We have endured more than a year of very marginal conditions and now the Queensland floods. All that mud moving down our way just goes to shut down any chance of a dive. Then we see the results of the revue of the Solitary Islands Marine Park. The idea was to straighten boundaries and encourage improved compliance with sanctuary borders. We got involved in a big way with more than 50% of submissions coming from spearos and fishers. Result, the Greens screwed us over royally. It no longer matters if you participate because along the line you will be ignored, is there no recourse? The powers that be in management of Marine Parks have an agenda, agreed on behind the scenes with politicians. That means when the final decision comes through your opinion will be ignored. I am not surprised that the local commercials are taking this fight seriously. I hope that in the next State elections, sanity holds and this pathetic Labour government is chucked out. Hopefully the coalition will scrap these new one-sided decisions. Interesting to see that scuba divers are still allowed to operate in the sanctuary areas.

12 September 2010

2010-09-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

Big Pro-Fishing protest in Coffs Harbour today to highlight commercial, recreational and spearfishing opposition to unscientific expasion of marine sanctuary areas. We decided to get a dive in before the rally. Michael and I launched from Arrawarra and went looking for some of the monster crays we have been finding. It is a well recognised trapping area and we encountered several traps in the area with a lot of them having only 1 cray inside. We dived for a long time investigating all the nooks and crannies and only found 3 crays. Not nearly as productive as it has been. We dived co-operatively, one up, one down and carefully searched the area and in spite of this the crays were thin.

Very little current and the viz was not too flash. Moved to a spot on Chopper to look for pearl perch. Found lots of bait: bulls-eyes with sawtail in tow. Found the yellow-spotted sweet-lips which is always a good indication of the presence of pearlies. I found 1 reasonable pearly which was quickly knocked over. Thought I saw a snapper and followed from the surface but it was gone when I dived. Headed back early to go to the rally.

1 September 2010

2010-09-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

First day of Spring and I get to go diving, can it get any better? I was hanging around at home when Chris called and asked me to go for a dive off Look-at-me-now Headland. Conditions seemed good with a little more swell and wash which should suit the jewfish. Truth be told, I wanted to see where Chris dives because he always comes away with some good crays and fish. True to form he found a heap of crays, same principle as elswhere, dive down, swim around looking for cracks then collect crays. There are a large number of undersized crays in this area and I hope all divers are respecting the rules. We had a large quantity of burley and were hoping to attract a snapper. It was just not meant to be. Had lots of bait around with tarwhine scavenging on the bottom and eventually even a moray eel and some rays but not a single snapper. The gutters in this area are spectacular and it is fascinating to swim over shallow rocks only to find a deep pebble lined bowl right next to the rocks. This place should hold good numbers of jewfish when conditions are favourable.

We should start to see the water warming again. After the floods we seemed to have an unusually high level of silt around but the storms since then appear to have cleared it away. The water is cool but not cold and the viz is not bad either. I am looking forward to a good season especially considering the massive quantity of bait around.

27 August 2010

2010-08-29T23:54:00.000-07:00

We are getting reasonable conditions far more frequently. Managed to get the afternoon off and looked for some dive buddies but everyone was working or retired injured. Decided to take a gentle jaunt off Look-at-me-now. Easy swim from the beach along the headland. Massive school of whiting in the shallows then bumped 1 which would easily have gone 1kg, could not believe how big it was. I was looking for snapper and continued out to sea along the edge of the reef. Lots of stingrays, all about the size of a side-plate, very cute. Also one large shovel-nose and a smaller one a little deeper. Started examining the rock gutters and since the swell was negligible, I was able to get up against the rocks and find all the holes. Perfect deep bowls with large stony bottoms and no jewfish anywhere. On the southern corner, found some good bream and followed them around for a short while before a 5kg snapper came along. I tried my best to keep my distance and remain disinterested but these fish are not stupid. It stayed in the area for over an hour but never came close enough to allow a shot. Was tempted to pick up some crays but with 3 at home already, would just have been greedy. Besides they stay freshest in the sea and they seem to always be available. There is a large amount of good jewfish country and I am looking forward to checking it out again. Maybe next time I will check at the Emerald Headland if I get these great conditions again.

25 August 2010

2010-08-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

Winter has seen a dramatic improvement in conditions. Viz may be poor but there are some good fish about and then there are crays. We have been very fortunate to uncover some excellent cray ground but it just has not been productive until now. Slippers and painted crays have no size limits but greens do and where we normally struggle to find size crays, this year it is finding crayfish that are small enough to take. Not that we are having a hard time finding crays, recently we uncovered several nests and managed to get some legal crays but it did take some work to find the smaller ones.

Fish are a little more difficult. Winter is not a good time traditionally but jewfish are about in good numbers, kingfish are too. If the viz improved, the deeper pinnacles would produce some Samsonfish which are always welcome. One does bump into things along the way too. Some gold-spot wrasse, blue-bar parrots and more snapper than usual. Pearl perch are quite thick if you know where to go. This is often a question of current with certain areas producing in northerlies and others in southerlies. I am looking forward to a good Spring because there is a stack of bait all over the reefs. It is a good mix of bait too. The whales are in close and I think this does indicate a change in currents. The rough water probably washed away much of the silt that spilled down from the Clarence and accounted for the early crappy conditions.

25 July 2010

2010-07-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

Headed out with Justin, Kurt and Aussie on 'Flying Fish' to look for tuna and marlin yesterday. Unfortunately, the conditions that had brought the striped marlin on during the previous week had changed a little and the warm EAC had moved further offshore. 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained.' We left Coffs Harbour before sun-up and headed out to the shelf on autopilot. At the shelf, new co-ordinates were set for fish traps at 'hole in the wall' and we put out our teaser spread to try for an elusive billfish. We had 4 hookless kona-heads chugging behind the boat from the 3rd wave back to the 5th. The ocean was a cool 22 degrees and we set about kitting up. Each diver would get a 1/2 hour on and during that time any fish raised would be his responsibility. Kurt took first watch, then it was my turn, Aussie next and finally Justin. It was on Justin's watch that he and Aussie spotted something behind the back teaser. They weren't too sure but their excitement was contagious. Kurt and I looked back to see the bill and dorsal fin of a smallish billfish behind the port teaser. I could see the fish's colours all lit up under the lure. Justin was about to go over when the fish just disappeared. What an anti-climax. Hindsight is perfect sight and some-one should have gone over at the point the fish was seen. Probably a good idea to have the skipper clued up too because you don't want a marlin boat running over you with its props turning either.

We found the traps and took to burleying which brought interest from some good dolphinfish. We gave them a while to settle around the boat and soon Aussie and Justin had fish on board. The school then seemed to become quite elusive. At the second fish trap, we did not wait for the burley to have any effect and the dolphinfish were wary from the start, not offering much of a chance at a shot at all. This was a great trip but long and probably not something I would engage in regularly unless the chance of success was greater.

17 July 2010

2010-07-19T00:24:00.001-07:00

Michael, Justin and I went in search of crayfish and snapper. There was a stiff southerly creating an unpleasant swell with a significant chop. We headed north of North Rock and jumped in on the sheltered side. Current was flowing north. We looked around for crayfish as well as heading into the gutters in search of jewfish but we could find none. There are some really good gutters and caves in this area. In retrospect we were on the wrong side with the current coming from the south. We set about getting a good burley trail going but nothing came in on it. Better to have headed into the teeth of the wind and sounded around for bait and then got the trail going. I get approximately 3 pieces of burley from one pilchard and count to 10 before dropping a piece of burley. That way I get a steady burley going and 2 packets of pilchards gets about an hour of burley (120 pilchards).

Reports indicate a large number of striped marlin offshore attacking schools of pilchards in the warmer water. We are trying to put together an offshore trip this weekend to chase marlin and tuna. I sincerely hope we are able to get this sorted out.

12 July 2010

2010-07-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

There has been little if any spearfishing to be had off Coffs Harbour recently. Die-hards are looking for jewfish(kob) against the headlands or chasing snapper on the shallow kelp covered bommies. The water is cold and uninviting. A more pressing problem is the Solitary Islands Marine Park review which needs your submission. Please go to www.savesol.com and complete the submission. This should not take longer than 10 minutes. The submission is detailed with the inclusion of maps and motivation. All you need to do is add 3 comments and send it.

19 May 2010

2010-05-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

Recovered from a bout of flu and ready to dive again. The only thing that gets me down after recovering from a respiratory infection is how out of condition you get. Got news that there are some jewfish around the headlands and there is still a shot at some couta from the side. Kris contacted me and said mack tuna were thick off the North Wall. Grabbed gear and headed to harbour. there was a lot of activity and I kitted quickly and jumped in. Swam around a heap and found some good ground that should produce in the future. Potentially great area for jewfish just north of reef. Massive amount of whitebait being smashed by mack tuna and we picked up some for sushi. Apparently there have been some long tail tuna in the area too. Planning a great dive tomorrow.

Part of problem with getting these fast moving fish is being in the right place at the right time. We found that lying still and allowing the whitebait to collect around us allowed the tuna to come in. Feeding tuna move really quickly and it is near impossible to track them through the water. It is easier to line up when a school approaches and point the gun at where you expect the fish to be. Pull the trigger when a fish moves into position. Similar technique to aiming at a piece of burley when hunting yellowfin. There were some bonito and kingfish around too.

8 April 2010

2010-03-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

I have been very busy helping to put together the Classic and take a trip up to far Northern Queensland to go spearfishing with my brother, who was visiting from South Africa. I have been putting in some time diving but with the Classic now over, I can settle down to just enjoying my spearfishing again. The trip to the Barrier Reef was described in an article I did for www://spearfishingsa.co.za/news/barrier-reef-by-mark-kallman.htm. I will be preparing stories on the Classic for Spearfishing Downunder Magazine and International Freediving and Spearfishing News.

19 February 2010

2010-02-18T17:35:00.000-08:00

2010 Australian Bluewater Freediving Classic takes place on the 27-28 March 2010.

I have had a rough time recently. When I have spare time the water is terrible and when the water clears I am working. Sucks! But a good southerly has been blowing and we have warm water against the coast. Cobia have been taken as have some Spanish. The good news is the number of snapper around. I have seen a few but they are difficult. Probably time to start targeting them specifically. When you concentrate on a particularly difficult species, it is amazing how well you do with the others as an added bonus.

My little brother is coming over to Australia and we are heading north on the trip of a lifetime. John featherstone of Spearfishing Downunder Magazine has invited us up to the Coral Sea on an expeditionary/exploratory spearfishing safari. I am relieved that we will have a variety of dive conditions for my brother and hope to add a number of personal bests to my tally.

Samsonfish, blue-bar parrotfish, pearl perch and kingfish are around, you just have to find some viz. The viz is patchy but a question of moving 500m to 1 kilometre may mean the difference between 2m or 20m. The ocean is quite remarkable. Finally it sounds as though some wahoo are making an appearance but I have not heard of any big ones. Perhaps when the viz settles things should improve.

31 January 2010

2010-01-31T16:41:00.000-08:00

I was invited down with some friends to investigate reef south of Coffs Harbour. We were heading off on the premise that the few co-ords we had would put us onto some fish and that we might be able to get better conditions. We launched off the beach at Nambucca and headed out into water with several small pinnacles in about 22m of water. It was quite warm and clean compared to some of the recent water we have endured. Within a short while, Michael and Glen had taken Samsonfish. We were diving about 50m away from them and never saw anything. When things turned quiet we moved to some reef that looked as if it might hold mackerel, again, lots of diving but no fish. Conditions varied a fair amount as one spot would have warm clean water top to bottom and another just warm surface water or dirty clean water. It was impossible to predict what you might find from one spot to the other. There was a very slight southerly current when we arrived at the point at Nambucca just off the beach. Water went to 22m at the southern edge but was a comfortable 18m at the pinnacles. The viz was not too bad and I hung my flashers down to act as a target for any pelagics. On my first dive I saw a large fish move into the gloom. There was a lot of bait in very big schools and they were hanging close to one another. They did not appeared unduly harassed but a few tail cracks confirmed that large fish were busy in the area. I continued into the current to the southern edge and continued diving and watching my body language. Pretty soon I saw 2 large shapes come into view and at first thought it might be a small dolphin. On closer examination I picked up on the 2 Sambos and selected the larger of the 2, making a good holding shot in the shoulder. The other fish hung around its buddy and I called Kris over to see if he could get another fish. By the time he arrived, the other fish had left and I used his gun to get myself another securing shot. The fish weighed 16.9kg and fought really hard.

In the meantime the other boat of divers had also managed some more Samsons as well as a couple of Spanish. The gentle current from the south really turned it on. We joked afterwards that had we started at this spot first thing in the morning, we may well have ended up overloading our boats with fish. Everyone seemed to have had a great day but more importantly, had seen fish larger than the ones we had taken.

23 January 2010

2010-01-22T16:24:00.000-08:00

Up before sparrow's fart this morning for a quick run out to look for Spanish. Left Arrawarra well before sunrise and headed north towards Chopper. Found an area inside of Chopper and went over with intent. Started doing my first few downs and noticed several large red morwong. As I headed back to the surface a fish with an unusual shape caught my attention and I turned back thinking it may be a small jack. My shot was from a long way away but I quickly identified the fish as a pearl perch. Fortunately Michael was nearby to secure the fish when it slipped off my spear for no apparent reason. Go figure. Continued looking for bait and working the flasher. Michael saw a mackerel in the distance as did Luke. I decided to lie on the bottom for a while hoping to arouse a curious mackerel's attention. Did nothing but when I looked up it was like a mini grove of bamboo with all the crayfish feelers. I quickly grabbed one making sure not to disturb the rest. The crayfish was gigantic and I thought to load this 'painted' into the boat then grab another. Michael laughed as I hit the surface: green and way oversize, so back it went. He dived to look at the other crays, probably another 20 and they were all way too big. I just hope that no-one else decides to make off with these breeding stock and screw things up for the rest of us. We got a serious burley trail going but only a load of bait arrived. Work was starting to loom and we made an early departure. The water is warm about 23 and clearing, murky 12m. Looking good for tomorrow. Mackerel are being landed south of us so with some luck we should manage some tomorrow.

22 January 2010

2010-01-21T16:40:00.000-08:00

There are reports of Spanish (Couta) around the reefs near Arrawarra and as a result we decided to invetsigate some of the shallower pinnacles and bumps near Woolgoolga. Took a quick trip out to the pole off Look-at-me-now Headland. A number of mackerel have been seen with a few being taken but no-one is getting them consistantly. The fishermen are managing to take a considerable number though.

Kris, James and I launched off Emerald beach and within 5 minutes were on the reef. Dropped in and swam around until I found the bait. Water temperature in the top 8m was 23 at least but below that was only about 19. Lots of slimies, yakkas and bulls-eyes about but they seemed very content, swimming in well distributed schools. There was little indication of the harassment you see when the bait is tightly packed with their little eyes bulging in fear as mackerel savage them.

We tried everything short of going and buying a few mackerel fillets. Worked the flasher with intent and several bonnies that stumbled into our path were quickly turned into burley. Nothing. The viz was not spectacular and as the sun approached the horizon, the dark of the water started becoming far more intimidating. By 8pm we elected to head back to the beach with nothing to show for our efforts.

This weekend looks as if it will be quite a good weekend but it will be sensible to look for mackerel on the northern reefs.

19 January 2010

2010-01-18T14:48:00.000-08:00

This is my first post for the new year. This weekend provided several opportunities to go diving. Our first dive trip was a bit of an adventure. On Friday we towed a boat up to Broom's Head and launched off the beach. My wife kindly took the trailer back to Arrawarra for our return later that day. We had decided to make an entire day of spearfishing and explore lots of reef that sees little diving pressure. Unfortunately conditions precluded much of the area we would have targeted and poor sea conditions limited our scope. We did see dorado at the Wooli FAD but they were very nervous and I only managed to drop one on an early dive. The continental shelf was as dirty as it was inshore and the current there was neary 6km/h. I took a reasonable tarwhine for my trouble at one of the shallow reefs. We dropped into Woolgoolga for lunch then headed out again to look at the shallow reef in the area. There was absolutely nothing worth mentioning.

On Saturday I convinced my son Reece to join me for a dive around Korora and he seemed to have enjoyed the experience. We found lots of Wobbegongs, no crayfish but we did find several abalone which made it a worthwhile trip.

On Monday I went out with a friend and we were very keen on finding some Spanish. Conditions were not what you would expect to see them in however. It was cooler then it had been in quite a while and there was lots of particulate matter and comb-jellies in the water. We started at Pig then moved along to Park Beach Bommie and finally to Split before deciding we were wasting our time in the deeper water. I had a small yellowtail and Kelvin a yellow-spot sweetlips. Kelvin is an absolute task-horse and was game to continue diving in spite of poor conditions. We decided to move into the shallows and see if our luck improved. What a great call. At the first shallow area we explored we found lots of large scattered rocks with many sand gulleys and depressions between. It was not long before I bumped into the first jewfish of the day. I found them on 2 more occasions but if you are not on the bottom stalking them before you see them, forget it. Kelvin did pick up a crayfish though. The next area had little in the way of gutters and we found no jewfish but another cray was added to the bag. The next jump was in the area I had dived with Reece, so several more abalone were added to the bag. I had some description of a potential gutter in the area and swam in at one end with Vinnie at the other. In the confusion that followed he lost a jewfish and landed another as about 80 fish charged passed him! We then moved to an area that is very pretty to dive and holds a number of crays. I scoured the area, and eventually picked up a large cray before we moved again. This time we cornered the jewfish in an arena type area where they milled around under the white water allowing us to take 3 fish out of the school. I was able to knock over a tailor in the confusion too. The haul for the day was not massive considering the size of the fish but we had fun and came away with some newly gleaned knowledge and a pile of delicious seafood.

7 December 2009

2009-12-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

I have struggled with my spearfishing this year purely as a result of the horrid conditions. However, there has been a sudden spark which has rekindled my enthusiasm. I have been on leave for a week, hoping to get some good water and do some diving. The conditions remained poor but a gap in the weather did shine through on the 3 December. Michael, Justin and I headed out to see if we could find anything. We launched at 17:45 considering NSW has daylight saving, that is an hour earlier than it looks and headed off to see what we could find. The sea was not as clean as it had appeared, it was also quite cold. There was a current coming from the NE. We travelled to several different spots looking for a sign of any fish activity. After dropping in on 3 different areas and not finding anything, we decided to head back.

Justin wanted a quick look in the cave at NW Island and I was not too excited. There seemed to be nothing going on. Michael and Justin quickly swam over to the cave and Michael showed Justin a couple of Jewfish lying in a gutter. Justin was looking elsewhere and the sound of his Riffe discharging alerted Michael to his attempt. He turned and saw a Samsonfish struggling on the spear. I arrived to see Justin subduing his Samson and heard Michael saying that he had seen Jew. I swam to the gutter leading into the cave and saw a massive amount of Bulls-eyes hanging inside of the gutter and obviously disturbed. 2 large jew then swam out of the gutter. Michael was saying there were more fish in the cave and I ducked into the gutter, swimming into the lower opening of the cave.

The opening from the gutter resembles a crack leading into the main structure then up towards some sand and a smaller opening. I lay inside the cave behind a fairly large rock and looked intently at the light on the other side. I saw the silhouette of the jew as it moved from the right to the left. It was obviously looking into the dark and was not aware of my presence. I lined up my speargun where I imagined the fish would appear. Its eye appeared and I fired instinctively. It rolled onto its side incapacitated.

The light on the other side beckoned and I swam out into the twilight of the early evening, stopping to pull the fish free. I knew it was big but the dark of the cave can be deceptive. Michael's eyes and excitement told me what I already expected. This was a big fish. Puffing and struggling to drag the fish to the boat then haul it aboard and pose for photos. I was bushed. Its tail stuck out of the esky. The relief of having been able to land it successfully was overwhelming. We weighed it at one of the club's scales and it weighed 31.7kg. Probably a new 'Best-of-the-Best' and a significant milestone in my diving, one that will forever remain in a memory.

26 November 2009

2009-11-25T22:18:00.000-08:00

A little more than a month has elapsed since I last posted anything on this blog. That is not for lack of wanting to post something but because there has been little or nothing to talk about. The weather settled for a time, then flooded again (5th flood event this year) turned the ocean to crap. Looked like we were going to see some improved conditions and wham, massive northerlies bring in the cold winter water. Viz went from looking reasonable at 8-15m to a little better than 1m and the sea temperature dropped about 5 degrees too.

There are a few die-hards who can find their secret little cray holes blindfolded, YIPPY KAI YAY! They have taken some crays, also some abalone about. From a fish point of view, there is lots of promise with the first cobia and mackerel of the season having been landed. Kingfish still abound and there is a healthy mix of numbers and some real size fish. In the moments when conditions have allowed, samsonfish are at the recognized pinnacles too. I have heard of a really good jew being taken but the diver in question has kept it under wraps? There are lots of snapper and bluebar parrot but conditions just do not allow you to hang around waiting for them to come to you. The current just pushes you off. Justin did get a good 7kg parrot recently.

Probably time to look at getting my fitness in order because when conditions allow, I am going to be making a pig of myself. Anyone who believes spearfishing is easy, is fooling themselves!

22 October 2009

2009-10-21T21:54:00.000-07:00

It has been utterly dismal. The sea has been atrocious and the weather just seems to stack the odds against getting back into the ocean ever again. There has been so little diving since the Classic was held, I think I can honestly count the number of dive days on one hand. Great days? Maybe 1 this year! My patience is being sorely tested and I don't know how long I will remain sane at this rate. I really need to start diving again or accept that diving in mud will be my lot in life.

17 October:

I apologise to those readers following the spearfishing column. Unfortunately I have to put in some time at work and with the sudden increase in ticks; I have been kept very busy saving pets’ lives and the column suffered as a result. Things have quietened down just a little to allow me writing this article. The past few weeks have been dismal on the spearfishing front. The last club competition was rescheduled because of poor conditions then cancelled because conditions stayed bad. I don’t know of any divers who have taken fish recently.
At the recent club meeting, we were reflecting on the number of really good days we have seen this season and unanimously agreed that we have only seen one great day. The fisho’s seem to be cracking it with some good catches of pearlies, jew and snapper coming in over the grapevine. The good news is that divers out wide have seen some big dolphinfish and the clear water is lying just off the shelf.
The death of Jacob Lollback, a fit competent spearo came as a shock to all spearos. It has heightened awareness of the danger associated with this sport. In an effort to promote safe diving, the club will be running some safety programs in the near future. These promise to be extremely informative and useful. At this stage Mike Wells the diver who swam through the cave at Fish Rock is touted as presenting this course. There will be some training sessions scheduled to take place in the pool at Woolgoolga. John Featherstone is on top of this initiative and there should be some information made available shortly. We are also looking at holding a freediving course presented by the world-renowned freediver, Erez Beatus. Members are encouraged to forward their email addresses to the committee to be included on our mailings with regard to these important events.
Underwater hockey is doing well on Monday evenings 6pm-7pm at the Memorial Pool. This is great training for spearfishing and anyone is welcome to come along to see what all the fuss is about. Scuba divers would benefit greatly from the training as your dive times will improve significantly.
The next club meeting will be at the Woolgoolga RSL on Wednesday 21 October at 7:30pm with the next club competition scheduled for Sunday 25 October.

24 October:

The freedive course has been scheduled for the first weekend in December, unfortunately all the places were filled within an hour of the details being finalised. As a result of the high level of interest, I am sure we will be able to present another course early in the new year. John Featherstone has arranged a session at the Woolgoolga pool for any interested spearos who want to test their guns at submerged targets. It also gives you the ability of making sure your gun is still in adequate working order after all the time it has been neglected this season. Wednesday 11 November is the scheduled date for this pool session and there will be some Riffe spearguns available to test too. Rob Mutton is busy with the safety course and the dates will be forwarded as soon as they become available.
Unfortunately there is little to report on the spearfishing front. Some fish have been landed for the plate but there have been no particularly noteworthy catches made. Very few crayfish have been seen, let alone landed. The odd painted crayfish have been collected and, interestingly enough, some purple crayfish, which are unusal visitors to our area. The weather conditions this Spring have been exceptionally poor and we are all keen for some good conditions. Divers who have been rock-hopping, when conditions allow, also report few jewfish around. Anyone who still believes that spearfishing is an easy sport is massively ill-informed.
Patience is a virtue and at this stage the best advice I can offer is to look after your fitness, in the hope that we get some better conditions in the future. Research is being conducted on wahoo and an appeal has been made for spearos or fishos to send wahoo frames to the researcher. Last season 100 frames were used in the study and the hopes are for 300 specimens to be examined this season. Anyone wishing to make a frame available should contact Mitchell.Zischke@csiro.au.
The next club competition is scheduled for this Sunday 15 October, from Arrawarra. Please contact Flange on Saturday evening to confirm participation in the event. If you are not keen to compete, you are welcome to come along for a social dive as there are usually spaces available on the boats for additional divers.

3 September 2009

2009-09-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

The weather improved very nicely over the weekend. Started off diving on Saturday morning. Conditions weren't too spectacular. We were diving over the low tide period and in spite of really applying ourselves to the task at hand, we came away with nothing for our troubles. From my point of view, a day diving is never a complete loss. You always learn about new points and detail about approaching areas you may have ignored before. Sometimes you think that you know an area until some-one tells you exactly how to approach the area and you discover a new hotspot. We did our best to find kingfish, jewfish and crays but were unsuccessful. We all managed to get a snapper while bait fishing, so the morning was not wasted.

Sunday was not pegged as a dive day as conditions had been quite marginal on Saturday. By midday the picture was changing. I got a call from Justin to get me in the mood for diving and Kurt was coming along too. We headed straight to the lighthouse and started off being quite disappointed with the conditions. When we arrived at the N end of the light, the sea had improved tremendously. Mozambique water, 25-30m viz with a temperature around 21C. I hopped in to find a school of Australian Salmon circling the boat. Thinking they were tailor, I knocked one over, as my wife loves tailor. Salmon have a reputation for being very ordinary and I chose to burley it up. For me this proved to be the ticket as I quickly picked up 4 reasonable kingfish. The pushing tide seemed to be pushing in better water all the time. I saw schools of bluebar parrotfish and a big school of jewfish all safely inside the sanctuary. Justin and Kurt lay on the bottom watching a school of Mangrove Jacks at their cave, these also safe in the sanctuary. On the edge of the reef toward the NE in about 22m of water, I followed a bluebar for a long time. The fish seemed flighty and the presence of 3 large Grey Nurse Sharks probably added to his shyness. A large shape resembling a small whaler approached and only when it got close to me did I realise it was a massive kingfish. This fish proved to be too smart for me too. As did a nice Amberjack a little later.

As the sun was dropping we stopped at a shelf to see if we could dupe some Mangove Jacks. The surge was a little intense to get too close to the hotspot but Justin found and speared a 17kg kingfish. A really big strong fish. One can only imagine how hard the really big ones fight! I am just happy to have some fresh kingfish to smoke over the weekend.

On Wednesday we decided to try our luck with the snapper again. True to form I ended up catching a little red rockcod on nearly every cast. These are small scorpion-fish like critters and look quite nasty. Michael got a reasonable snapper. We stopped at the wash to do a little diving as the water seemed to be improving. Michael quickly subdued a 15kg Samsonfish, but paid for his catch with a badly bent spear. We moved to the S side of NW and Luke found another Jewfish, this time 19kg, slightly smaller than his previous 22kg fish. My diving was shot. In my haste to pack, I did not load my mask & snorkel in, which really put a damper on my diving.

This weekend I hope to explore one or two of the new spots I have been shown and perhaps get some diving in off my sea-kayak.

27 August 2009

2009-08-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

Took a rock-hop yesterday at Look-at-me-now Headland. Swam in along the N end looking for crays. Lots of good structure but the huge numbers of small crays were nowhere to be found. Found 3 smallies under a rock with a small Wobby and a tiny Abalone. Water was weird, very patchy. Areas almost milky with really poor viz and then patches with murky 9m viz. Unfortunately it looks like the weekend might be a blow-out if the weather prediction is anything to go by. However, I often find that just before a dramatic weather change you could get lucky. A friend of mine went in around The Lighthouse and there were lots of kingfish. I think he may have used the word THOUSANDS. I certainly hope they are around on the weekend. There are several areas which afford a safe anchorage and make for pleasant diving even if there is serious chop/surge.

I read an article regarding an acquaintance of mine who was badly shook up by a White off Perth. The shark sounds like it may well have been over 6m long. Gyula does not spook easily and when I last spoke to him, he recounted as many as 4 previous encounters, so it is not as if he is unfamiliar with the beasts. Seems the shark pursued an active interest in him and the boat for quite some time. Easy to joke about it after the fact but at the time it would be extremely frightening.

24 August 2009

2009-08-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

Last weekend turned out to be a goodie. Took a quick trip out to Northwest Island and bumped into a small school of large jewies. The first I hammered but it got off after 2 additional shots being made. Then Luke got one of 22kg with some assistance and finally I found another which after being shot, bolted over the reef. I got hold of it and brought it to the surface. As I slid my hand forward to hold onto the fish it struggled, throwing the spear and disappearing into the gloom. Then to add insult to injury, I found a bunch of large Blue Groper and as I lay there watching them I switched off. Only after the parrotfish had been alerted to my presence did I cotton on to it being there amongst the groper. It beat a hasty retreat safely away from the sleeping spearo. It had easily been in range and I had been lulled by all the groper. I would dearly like to explore the cave that the jewfish were in but unfortunately no torches allowed when spearfishing in NSW. I hope the petitioning, to have this silly law revoked, is successful. It is really frustrating to dive in a cave without a reel-gun too. A long piece of line trailing behind irritates me as it gets in the way and makes it difficult to work inside of a confined space.

Dived this weekend in the club's comp but could have spent the time doing other more productive things if the results are anything to go by. Everyone seemed to have a hard time of it. Pete took 2 reasonable kingfish but did not weigh them. Flange got a nice kingie and ended up weighing that and a bream. Fish of the comp was his kingfish which is probably a reflection of how difficult the diving was. Kurt and co. got a painted crayfish and several abalone, so their day was not a complete waste of time. Ben, one of our new members, took a painted home to try, in spite of everyone saying that it was not worth eating. Best I saw, was a school of Kingfish at Northwest but they stayed out of range and 2 Bonito which came in from behind me at Dougherty's after a LONG bottom-time. Unfortunately as I moved the fish ducked and I went home without sushi.

These are some of my recent articles which have appeared in the local Advocate in the fishing pages:
8 August
While the weather remains calm, the sea has not really cleared sufficiently to make spearfishing a worthwhile proposition. That is unless you manage to find one of the small pockets of clear water that seem to make their appearance every now and again. Perhaps after 2 years of marginal diving conditions we may be in for a run of better conditions. The temperature remains around the 20 C mark and if you look at one of the many sea surface temperature maps, you will have noticed the tell-tale finger of warm water moving down from the north which heralds the start of the new diving season. The weekend holds some promise with Kingfish around the lighthouse and the wash being at a sure bet. Having said that, a rock-hop will provide a good feed of bream or luderick, they may not have all the glamour of the big pelagics but they do taste good.

On an interesting note, there are still many people who do not realize that spearfishing is a sport performed on a single breath-hold and then diving down to find, stalk and subdue the intended quarry. Contrary to popular belief, no scuba gear is employed. This is a remarkable feat when one considers that some spearos have the capability of diving to 30m. That is the equivalent of diving the depth of a 10 storey building. Recently a South African diver broke the world-record for spearing a fish at depth. Trevor Hutton went down to 60m where he speared a fish before returning to the surface. Total dive time almost 3 minutes, a monumental feat indeed.
The club meeting will take place on Wednesday 19 August and all members are strongly encouraged to attend, as some extremely important decisions need to be made. I will endeavour to inform as many people as possible with the details closer to the time. Next weekend should provide reasonable conditions and members are further reminded to come along to the club competition on Sunday 23 August. The improving conditions should at least get some fresh fish on the dinner plate. The Memorial Pool will be opening in September and the Underwater Hockey players are invited to get back into training, more details toward the end of the month.

22 August
Some-one once said to me of fishing: “If you don’t have a line in the water, I’ll guarantee in you won’t catch anything.” There is no lack of effort on the part of some of our club members who make the brave effort to swim out off the headlands in pursuit of crayfish and jewies. The viz has been cloudy and I heard a report of one diver getting a look-over by a Great Fright (white pointer) off one of the headlands near Woolgoolga. Everyone I speak to repeats the mantra: “we need a southerly blow to clean the sea.” While we all hold our breath and hope for the best there are still fish to be had.

Saturday last weekend we took a quick trip out off Arrawarra and found a small school of large Jewfish in a cave. The first fish targeted took 3 shots to slow. The fish returned to the cave and appears to have been wolfed by a large Wobby. The next fish was almost lost at the cave mouth but with a quick back-up shot made, the fish was successfully captured. It weighed an astonishing 22kg, a notable specimen indeed. When fish are in an easily targeted position, the onus is on the diver to remain conservative and control the urge to take too many fish. It is a question of limiting your kill, not killing your limit. Club members are reminded of the club competition on Sunday.

13 August 2009

2009-08-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

Conditions seem to be improving but then when I get a day to dive, weather turns nasty. Last Wednesday I took my sea-kayak out for its first diving duty. Paddled to the NE side of Little Muttonbird Island and anchored up. Swam in to check the gutters for Jewfish and Crays. There were lots of fish around but mostly Bream, Blackfish, Luderick and Tailor. The water appeared clean when looking from the beach but once in, it had a milky/murky character. Just the water you expect to be hassled by a shark in. I have had so many jonnies snapping at my ankles that I now dive with a SharkShield.

My wife is pretty desperate for some fresh fish and with all the pan-sized fish around the rocks, I took a nice Bream which went down very well in beer-batter on Wednesday evening. Have been trying for Jews and Crays but nothing yet. Reports get to me of lots of small Crays and schools of Jewies but I must be diving in all the wrong places.

While weather conditions have settled, the tongue of warm water coming from N is staying away and the discoloured milky water seems to have become a permanent feature for the time being. Water temperatures hover around 20 C. With any luck, we will get some reasonably clean water to dive in soon, here's hoping.

4 August 2009

2009-08-04T03:03:00.000-07:00

Took a trip out to the Big Island on Sunday. Was hoping the sea would be cleaner than it appeared inshore. Unfortunately it was not to be. Dived on the E side of the island and there was lots in the way of trash fish but nothing worthwhile, not even the usual ubiquitous Kingfish. Kris picked up a small Samsonfish but I came away with nothing. We moved around to a few spots but the viz was poor inside of The Big Island.

I learned an important lesson about time off. You need to dive inside of your limits and your max in shape may not be your max at the start of the season. I really need to spend more time getting fit. Been a long winter which has taken its toll on my fitness. Guys have been chatting about the prevalence of the Jewfish around the headlands and I am hoping find some myself if the viz allows.

31 July 2009

2009-07-31T00:24:00.000-07:00

Went out looking for Yellowfin on Wednesday. Conditions were very good out on the shelf and we found a flock of working birds immediately on reaching the shelf. We tried pulling lures to encourage a strike but nothing happened. In retrospect, should probably have started a burley trail, heaven knows we had enough berley. Travelled from Arrawarra to the shelf then South toward the area off Coffs proper. We got 1 small Mack Tuna for our trouble.

I am sure the Yellowfin are there, it is just a question of being out there when they make a show. We are contemplating hitting the shelf again this weekend. Probably head out from Arrawarra, burley if we find birds working or an active collection of bait. Our idea is to come back via the Big Island and see if we can find some Mangrove Jack, Blue-Bar or Kingfish. Let's see what happens.

28 July 2009

2009-07-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

The weather is really holding off at the moment. We have had gloriously calm seas but the viz inshore has not been spectacular. Lots of divers rock-hopping but at the moment little coming my way of crayfish or Jewfish. The deepsea boys are getting into some seriously good fish. This just screams adventure and I am busily organizing a group of intrepid divers to go out and get some Marlin and Tuna.

The principle is to get an idea of where the bait balls are. In this case from 70m and deeper. Birds tend to give the baits' position away. If a bait-ball is found, one need only slide in amongst them and be patient. If the bait is not co-operating, drag some lures behind the boat (Rapalas, Halcos and Tuna feathers). When a strike is obtained start a burley trail. Ideally you want to use a drogue and mermaid line to slow the drift down and provide your divers with a point to comfortably rest. This is big gun territory. Break-away rigs with several floats are the order of the day. To encourage competition between fish on the burley trail, do not overfeed the fish. Ideally drop in a piece of burley and only follow it up when you lose sight of that piece. This will encourage the fish in close to the boat, hopefully ignoring the divers. A piece of information that I picked up was not to track the fish through the water but aim at a piece of burley, shooting when a fish comes into view. Perhaps by tomorrow I will have something to report on this. My telephone is going to be red-hot with all the calls made today!

For the sake of completeness I have included the article in the Advocate from Saturday:

25 July 2009

The Ocean is a fickle mistress. Tumultuous and unpredictable at the very least, she showed her calm and placid demeanour over the last weekend. The club competition went ahead, unexpectedly, I might add. The viz on the near-shore reefs was poor but out wide, it improved dramatically. We started at Northwest, then moving to The Wash. Although both of these venues appeared fishy, nothing worthwhile was encountered. The situation changed around The Big Island though. The viz went to 20m+ and it made a pleasant change lying on the surface watching the fish below. A charter boat at the pinnacles had created an extensive burley trail which attracted a cloud of fish. Without too much effort several Kingfish found there way into our esky.

We moved on to a patch of reef west of Hitler’s. Again several kingfish were found and we added 2 small Samsonfish to our tally. Last move was to a drift known as Bluebar Alley. I should have been paying closer attention because Kurt took an excellent fish on this drift. Unfortunately I would never be able to find the spot again. The Parrotfish was not a Bluebar. Some guest divers from Sydney confirmed that it was not a Bluebar and photos were taken to get it identified. My money is on an Ember Parrotfish and this is likely to be a new NSW state record. At the weigh-in, several Kingfish and Samsonfish came to the scales. The Parrotfish was most certainly the highlight of the weigh-in but there were Pearl perch and Mangrove jack in the mix too.

The weather is quite spectacular at the moment. Bright sunny days and the nights have lost that icy winter chill. The diving has been inspiring and it has motivated me to get fit in preparation for the new diving season.

23 July 2009

2009-07-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

And then the Ocean started co-operating. We had our club comp on the weekend and in spite of mucky viz on the nearshores, the viz out at the Big Island was quite phenomenal 20m+. So the water temperature was not brilliant and certainly no summer visitors would be around for the taking. There were lots of other fish on offer. My single greatest concern was that I was unfit and out of practice. I did not harbour any notions of doing well but got out and enjoyed the diving without any competitive drive. We started at Northwest and swam through the channel on the look-out for Jewfish. Then on to the Wash but the current kept us off the hotspot although there was lots of bait around. Finally, found a charter boat that was burleying up a storm at the pinnacles and I just waited far off their stern for any stragglers to come my way. 5 Yellowtail Kingfish was more than enough. I have already weighed my 2 Kingfish for the year, so these fish were taken purely to have some fish on the plate again. We moved from here to between The Mouse and The Big Island. More Kingfish for my dive buddies and I picked up a small Samsonfish. Finally to a spot known as Bluebar Alley. Please don't think I am being evasive about the spot but I don't think I could find it again. I saw no Parrotfish but Kurt did get a whopper of over 5.5kg. Turned out it was not a Bluebar. Photo's have been taken to allow identification and my money is on an Ember Parrotfish. It is very likely that this will be a new NSW state record. Some Pearl Perch and Mangrove Jacks were taken too.

It also seems as though the sea has calmed down and if one takes a moment to look outside, conditions are glorious. Even the icy bite of the cold air at night seems to have abated. All things considered there isn't another place I would rather be at the moment.

9 July 2009

2009-07-08T23:12:00.001-07:00

We are still seeing a massive amount of inclement weather. Yesterday I was treated to my first tornado. In 10 minutes I saw 4 develop a short distance off-shore. Certainly never want to be at sea when one of those comes along. I have included the bulk of my recent newspaper articles as an indication of what has been happening in Coffs. All that remains to be said is that spearfishing is becoming something of a dim and distant memory:

27 June 2009
As the lost opportunities for club competitions start to mount, I wonder if some of the divers who decided not to weigh fish in the earlier competitions are kicking themselves. A case in point: You will hear about the good size of Kingfish that are found around Coffs. On any reasonable day you could expect to bump into several fish in the 20kg region. When it comes to the day of competition, do you weigh a small fish because you have guaranteed points or do you hold off and wait for a larger specimen for more points and risk not seeing another one all year? Considering that you will only be permitted to weigh 2 kingfish in the year. Species points are relatively more heavily weighted than the weight of the fish which adds an additional angle to the conundrum. My approach is to weigh what you have: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, in a manner of speaking. Having said that, suffice to say that last Sunday’s competition was postponed to this coming Sunday, please remember to call Flange to determine if the comp is on.

How do you improve your odds of getting a fish to hand? The first and most important thing to do is not to over-think it. You need to relax and trust that your preparation has been adequate. It is obviously easier to shoot a fish at close range and then easier to subdue it if the shot is a good one. This will require stalking fish and your body language is paramount in maintaining complacency in your target. Keep your eyes away from the intended quarry, don’t swim at it, allow its curiosity to trick it into coming in close. When you squeeze the trigger, the release of the spear should come as a bit of a surprise to you. I find that my best spearfishing is when I am in an almost dissociated state because my body language and intention is not conveyed to the target. Zen and the Art of Spearfishing, if you will. If you can kill the fish immediately, you are spared the often long and protracted struggle which inevitably leads to sharks arriving and relieving you of your prey. Practice shooting and become proficient at hitting small targets. Ideally you want to hit the fish in the brain or spinal chord. To quote Mel Gibson: Aim small, miss small.

Remember that you are only allowed 2 crayfish and 2 abalone. The crays must be caught by hand, no spearing and must be kept whole. You are not permitted to clean your abalone in the sea.

So until we get another opportunity to get into the sea, enjoy gardening or the host of other household chores you neglected when conditions were good.

4 July 2009
Last weekend had some dramatically improved conditions. The competition was rescheduled for Sunday but lack of divers meant it was cancelled again. Reports from some commercials had indicated that blue water was moving in from the deep. Some boats did venture out and found good water around The Lighthouse.

Apparently there were some Mangrove Jacks about but they needed a healthy dose of finesse to be duped, something which Sunday’s divers were lacking. They did find some Kingfish and these made a welcome addition to their meager takings. They also added several good Tailor to their bag.

Weather predictions for the coming weekend seem dismal once again. The weatherman was talking of winds ranging between 50 and 90kmh. The swell will push up and make for really unpleasant conditions out at sea. With the amount of time we have free, now that the diving is trashed regularly, perhaps one could start planning some major projects at home. Heaven knows you will score some serious brownie points.

On a separate point, it seems the cold is keeping the underwater hockey players at home too. Texts are sent through to players and we really only need 6 players to have an effective training session. On a positive note, nights are shortening and days becoming longer and we are on the way to Spring. The Yellowfin Tuna are expected in the deep off Coffs fairly soon and the challenge of hunting these leviathans has seen little investigation by local Spearos. There is an enormous challenge in landing these superb fish and Coffs has the potential to deliver the goods.

11 July 2009
Some fascinating weather phenomena this week. I have never seen a water-spout and managed to see 4 in the space of 10 minutes between Macaulay’s Headland and Split Solitary Island. They were truly impressive and served to reiterate the poor diving conditions we continue to experience.

The subject of conservation was vociferously raised on a TV news broadcast last weekend. Apparently there are 30 Blue Groper which have reached cult status off Sydney and require an extension of the no-fishing zone, according to environmentalists. Now don’t get me wrong, conservation based on sensible research is a necessity. However, fishing bans based on ‘pet’ fish, smacks of utter stupidity. Blue Groper are legally protected in any case. In addition, they are probably the most prevalent demersal fish species encountered off our coast; their numbers clearly indicate that they are not a threatened species. Additional measures to avoid these ‘pets’ falling foul of a hook seem extreme. The fish may not be speared at all and more measures affecting spearos are completely unfounded.

The area in which the no-fishing zone is envisaged, is certainly not pristine. Sydney is subject to high levels of noise, light, air and water pollution and cannot, realistically, be considered an ecologically sensitive or endangered habitat. Perhaps if these ‘pet’ Blue Groper must be protected, above all else, they should be moved to the Sydney Aquarium and then we could stop turning the Ocean into a petting zoo! This form of conservation is tantamount to banning cars because a kangaroo was knocked over once.

The Ocean is a wondrously wild and exciting place. Let’s keep it that way and where protection is justifiable, protecting the habitat and not individual hand-fed fish.

The club meeting will be held at Michael Featherstone’s house on Wednesday evening and will involve an extensive Freediving safety briefing. All club members should attend.

19 June 2009

2009-06-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

I have been publishing a weekly update on spearfishing in Coffs Harbour in 'The Advocate' one of the local newspapers. I thought it might be worthwhile including these articles too:

The next Southerly front is here, along with the ubiquitous rain. Face it, when you are diving, you are wet already, as long as the Southerly clears the sea, we may be in for some diving this weekend. Club members are reminded that the monthly club competition will take place this Sunday, weather permitting. All skippers are to contact the Sports Officer on Saturday evening to confirm their participation. We have a very limited list of target species on our club list and each diver may only weigh 2 of each species per year. Very much a question of: ‘Limiting your kill, not killing your limit.’

It has not been all bad news since last weekend. I have a report of some-one swimming in from Sandy Beach headland. He found the surrounding area scoured clean of sand, with lots of newly exposed crayfish habitat. He said that the sea was cool but relatively clean, with suspended sand limiting viz. Diving in these shallow water conditions does take some getting used to. The effect of waves breaking and pushing you against structure requires that you use gear which you don’t mind getting scuffed and scraped. These conditions require the use of shortened buoy-lines, 10m at the longest, shorter more maneuverable guns and a slightly heavier weight belt to avoid continually floating to the surface. The buoy provides a handy place to hang a stringer line, a bag to keep your catch and a measuring instrument. My contact assures me that there were lots of crayfish but most were undersize. He could find no Abalone and although he heard drumming, he struggled to find Jewfish. The drumming is always a good indication that Jewfish are in attendance. A large kingfish ended up bending his spear and making his speargun useless which is when he did see a reasonable Jew. It is a funny coincidence, how that sort of thing always seems to happen.

There are some really good crayfish holes around Coffs, most of which are closely kept secrets but with some perseverance you may very well be handsomely rewarded for your efforts. Expect limited viz but be on the lookout for abalone and Jewfish too.

12 June 2009

2009-06-11T16:19:00.000-07:00

For those who have been following my blog, the lack of entries is more a reflection of the conditions in Coffs recently, than that I am too busy diving, I don't have time to write. Unfortunately after the last lot of rain turned the sea brown, we endured several strong S fronts which made the situation even worse. Recently, the systems have settled but we have been left with extremely poor viz. You would struggle to see passed the end of an 800mm gun. I have dived only once since returning from South Africa. A S front without rain is expected in the next few days and this may actually clear the sea up enough to make diving a possibility again. Winter has crept up on us too. The mornings are cold, not icy cold like Johannesburg, but cold enough to make you think twice before climbing out from under the delightfully warm covers. The thought of slipping into a cold damp wetsuit is frightening to say the least. Since I do not just limit myself to underwater hunting but also spend some time hunting game, I find my motivation tends to be toward keeping dry and warm, electing to use a rifle to take down my quarry.

On a more disappointing note, the representative body for spearfishing in NSW is considering breaking away from the National body. It is a real pity when internal politics leads to divisions which are likely to impact dramatically on the sport. I sincerely hope that this matter is resolved amicably.

19 May 2009

2009-05-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

In the long slow life of a great Rhodesian Teak (Baikiaea plurijuga) it had served as a shaded vantage point to a pride of lions, eager on subduing buffalo. Later its great branches gave a leopard a reclusive hideaway while rhino and elephant rubbed their rough thick hides against its enormous trunk. With the advent of the early explorers, the tree was cut and used as railway sleepers, providing the life-blood of an early African economy. The voracious appetite of industry knew no bounds and soon the majestic trees were decimated. Time moves on and the once trusty sleepers lay unclaimed in the hot dry African Savannah, almost forgotten. But in the heart of the lowly sleeper beat the proud, unrelenting heart of Africa.

With loving care the heart of the sleeper was awakened in the gentle hands of a craftsman called Andrew. He carefully constructs unique spearguns which awaken the Mythical Hunter's Spirit and embodies the courage of the African hunter. Each gun is uniquely patterned and crafted to suit the individuals' preferences. They are extremely robust and designed to give the spearfisher a significant advantage, whether pursuing dermersals on a reef or lying out in the deep blue in search of giant pelagics. A unique almost magical property of the wood is its impervious nature, giving it a rare gift of withstanding the effect of decay and the ravages of saltwater. The guns are priced favourably when compared to standard Euro-type guns and are significantly more affordable than comparable wooden guns.

I have been asked to put a 1.3m Euro-style gun through its paces. At this stage it is remarkable how resilient the gun is proving. It is quiet but above all uncannily accurate. I am sure I will have a lot more to say about this gun in the future.

18 May 2009

2009-05-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

Eventually there was a break in the weather. Friday looked like it would be a good day out but several telephone calls seemed to suggest that conditions were still poor. We should have gone to look in any case because their were some good fish at the North Island. I got reports of both Wahoo and Spanish being landed.

On Saturday we elected to do some fishing. Loaded the dive gear just in case we found good water. We trolled around The Wash and chatted to one of the local Fishos who told us the viz at the pinnacles was 25m. Lines up and we charged off to have a look. Conditions were very good. Clear water, perhaps not as warm as it has been, but still good. I jumped in with Duan who was freediving for the first time ever. A quick scan of the area and I saw what looked like a Spanish down deep. I sucked in a full lungful of air and headed down. At approx 15m a school of nice Yellowtail Kingfish approached and the fish I had been pursuing seemed to have disappeared. I selected a good specimen and put a spear through it. My gun was one of the wooden guns my brother put together and it shoots like a demon. The spear went exactly where I was aiming.

Back on the boat we were treated to a sight of absolute chaos and bedlam as large pelagics screamed into a school of Mack Tuna that had been feeding on the surface only moments before. We dropped some lures back hoping to pick up one of these monsters. After quickly picking up 3 Mack Tuna and seeing repeated attacks on the school, the decision was made to burley aggressively to attract these attackers. Michael and Duan jumped over to find Rainbow Runners, Mack Tuna and Yellowfin feeding on the burley. Unfortunately the Yellowfin just did not give anyone a shot. The secret here is not to track the fish in the water with your gun but aim at a piece of chum, shooting when the fish comes into view.

Michael and I ended with a drift along the E side of NW Rocks. A big Amberjack played hide-and-seek with me amongst a school of Kingfish and I eventually gave up, not wanting to clobber another King. Michael unloaded his gun and was just about to climb into the boat when several Spanish drifted into range. He quickly loaded but as he singled out a fish, it seemed to drift out of range. It was an extremely frustrated diver that clambered back into the boat.

Predictions are for more Southerly fronts. Looks like the break will be short-lived.

12 May 2009

2009-05-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

I just cannot believe how poor conditions have been here lately. Even the real die-hards are doing home maintenance! The line fishermen, both commercial and recreational, are getting poor results too. Everything seemed to be on track at the start of this season but it sure looks like the wheels have come off. Apparently out wide of the continental shelf, there is warm blue water which is giving up the odd Blue or Striped Marlin. I will be arranging my teaser gear and looking at heading out to try my luck at landing one of these behemoths.

John Featherstone and Tim MacDonald have recently returned from an adventurous trip to Exmouth. They went out on a commercial boat to an area that receives little if any fishing pressure. The fish they landed were very respectable. John tells me he took a Spanish of 34kg out of a school that had other fish which made his seem tiny by comparison. The Australian record for Spanish apparently comes from this area and I look forward to hearing more about the possibility of a trip out to this area. In the meantime I will be day-dreaming about the possibility of going to Bassas da India with my brother-in-law. Bassas, as it is lovingly called, is an extinct volcano in the Mozambique Channel. It is only visible at low-tide. It is in an extremely remote area and can only be reached by boat. Several sailing charters are offering this as a destination from Mozambique, with the promise of legendary Dog-tooth Tuna and Giant Trevally. I will have to be patient and see how events progress.

30 April 2009

2009-04-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a holiday back in South Africa. When I left, I endured a great deal of derision because my holiday happened to coincide with what traditionally is the best Wahoo season. This season started with a great deal of promise, lots of baitfish and some awesome water. The weather gods had differing opinions though. Looks like they are making every attempt to keep the likes of Spearos out of the Ocean. Massive amounts of rain and strong fronts have kept the sea rough and dirty. I don't know about you, but I prefer not to dive in chocolate milkshake.

There was a moment of respite during this meteorological assault and for 2 or 3 days everything calmed and the viz was the best it has been. Apparently, out at the pinnacles, the ripples on the sand at 35m could be clearly seen from the surface. There were some Wahoo and Spanish around and the lucky few that managed to get out, were rewarded.

I am now back in Australia with a new speargun to boot. My brother, Andrew, is putting a beautiful wooden gun together made from Rhodesian Teak. For those who don't know what Rhodesian Teak is, it is what the old railway sleepers were made from. This wood is extremely durable and becoming very rare. All live trees enjoy protection today and the only wood available, comes from recovered sleepers. I am looking forward to putting this gun through its paces.

2 April 2009

2009-04-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

What a disastrous turn of events. The strong S system that made its way up the coast just prior to the Classic eventually arrived in force on Tuesday, 31 March. The heavens literally opened and Coffs received nearly a metre of rain in a 24hr period. The ground had absorbed all the water it was going to and the first indication I got that something was up, was when I noticed a small river flowing down what used to be the Pacific Highway. The area has been declared a disaster area and there is unlikely to be much spearfishing taking place in the next few days or weeks.

The weather prediction for the next few days continues to indicate rain. Looks like the big fish out on the various pinnacles will remain safe for the time being. A photo was published in the newspaper recently of a 'marlin' caught off the S harbour breakwall. Apparently the angler caught several but this one was badly hooked and died. The fish was quite obviously a Sailfish. Sailies are encountered infrequently around Coffs Harbour, so it was very interesting to read that he had caught several during this fishing outing.

30 March 2009

2009-03-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the culmination of all the excitement: 15th Australian Bluewater Freediving Classic: Woolgoolga 2009. Saturday saw the intended start of the competition. A serious S system had moved in on Friday and was threatening a cancellation. After some deliberation, the Safety Committee gave the divers the green light and the boats were launched. They collected behind the backline waiting for the official start. The flare was lit by the Woolgoolga Sea Rescue and off the fleet charged out toward their preferred destinations. The Big Island had been red-hot during the week but that left the crew with the arduous task of returning into the wind. The prediction was for the wind to drop later in the morning. We played it safe and headed into the wind prefering a return with the wind, our intended hotspot: The Lighthouse. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision because the wind did not follow the predictions and we returned with the S that was blowing way more than 20knots.

Pelagic fish can be very elusive and they lived up to their unpredictability. Some fish were seen and chased or shot at because as the day progressed, the fish became more flighty. I saw several species but they were too harassed to allow any bold approach. My first breakthrough came while investigating a gulley for Jewfish. Some yellowtail schooled above me and I was able to take one with little effort. Soon after a large Silver Trevally was also taken but as it turned out, I should have measured it, because it was undersize. We persevered in various known hotspots and on a dive to search for a large Cobia I bumped into a school of Amberjack. One was quickly collected and loaded into the esky.

At the close, all the divers on our boat had taken 2 species. There were some really large fish taken by some of the luckier divers with Adam Smith getting a 24kg Spanish.

The wind had strengthened all day and Sunday looked like being worse. After a long deliberation, the divers headed out once more. The previous day of chasing had heightened the awareness of many fish in the over-used areas and it was necessary to widen our search. Another important element was concentrating on being stealthy. My first fish for the day was a small Spanish that was in an area obviously ignored by other divers because the fish was quite bold about coming to look at me. The next fish, a Yellowtail came up a burley trail that I started when the area I was in looked fishy but no pelagics were showing themselves. We stopped at several spots that should have held something but just did not produce. I saw some tremendous fish like big Bluebar Parrots and a monster Gold-spot Wrasse but they weren't part of the days agenda. Finally we battled the S wind and headed out to the wave-recorder. In all the areas we had dived, the current was heading S-N but at the recorder a cracking N-S current was in play. I struggled to swim against it and when it dawned that I was making no headway a school of small Dorado circled me. A third fish was added to my total.

It was a long trip back but we were running with the wind which made for easier going, compared to the competitors that struggled for an hour, to cover distances that normally take 10 minutes. Several good fish came to the scales in particular 2 good Cobia both over 20kg.

The competition went down well with lots of prizes awarded by generous sponsors. I am looking forward to this competition next year.

26 March 2009

2009-03-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

We managed to get our team together for a training session yesterday out at sea. Michael, Dave Welch and myself headed out to the Big Island and specifically the pinnacles N of the Island. The ocean was beautiful. Flat and calm with spectacular viz. I floated just outside of the bait and watched as a school of Mack Tuna started hammering the bait from below. I did some dives to the edges of the pinnacles in 15-22m of water and saw some Cobia near a Black Ray but my full attention was focused on shooting a Wahoo. The Wahoo did not disappoint. They were present in abundance. My ability to land one was sadly lacking however. Dave got the first at approx 15kg, I fired at one of the fish in that school falling horribly short. The next school I lay still and allowed them to approach closely. I thought the shot was good and my gear got dragged around the Ocean with my float being dragged down repeatedly. Eventually found the float after about a half hour of swimming. Retrieved the gun and the fish was gone....

Later I watched Michael fighting a huge Wahoo which weighed 25kg. A remarkable fish that many spearos would aspire to. I dropped down on a school of tuna that turned to look at me and placed a nice holding shot in one of the fish. I was quick to pull the fish in and hold it against my body to stop any struggling which may have given the fish a chance to escape. We are still a little unsure of the species because it resembled a Mack Tuna but without the pectoral spots: possible a Frigate Tuna. Dave took a Rainbow Runner while drifting over some deep structure.

We moved S and drifted along the channel between NW Rocks and the Big Island for Mackerel but nothing came knocking. With the Classic around the corner, Michael and I still had some things to attend to and we decided to make a move in. Dave saw a log floating in the middle of nowhere and that is always good for a quick look. Took some Leatherjackets and I picked up a small Dorado.

Last stop: The Wash. This is a pinnacle that comes to the surface and drops off to some significant depths around its steep sides. With the current from the N we drifted in along the NE edge of The Wash. The bait seemed quite nervous and were packed close together. On closer inspection an array of predators were in tow. It wasn't long before I had 2 Amberjacks, a Rainbow Runner and a Yellowtail loaded in the esky. It seemed like I had started the Classic early. There were several other species also in the vicinity and at least 3 others could reasonably have been taken around this spot. I have heard that around the deeper structure there are always some Jewfish present and that will be a definite plan come competition day.

Michael chatted to me at some length about taking Wahoo. He turns away from the fish not directing any swimming attempt at them. He sometimes even balls himself up to arouse their natural curiosity. Judging by his success with Wahoo his technique pays dividends.

I was glad to see a number of species that allowed close approach. Apart from the fish taken, I also saw Silver Trevally, Mack Tuna and Cobia. Last year any diver with 4 species would have made it into the top 10 and a diver weighing 5 species each day would have to be in contention to win.

21 March 2009

2009-03-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

I was reading Gletwyn's blog about servicing or attending to a carburettor at sea and I thought it might be worthwhile to run through some of the problems encounterd with my motors when I owned a boat. By the way, BOAT is an acronym for 'Bring Out Another Thousand'. Anyone interested in buying a boat would do well to bear this in mind before rushing out and splurging.

My boats, 2 in the end, were RIBs (rigid inflatable boats) with a pair of Yamaha 30hp, 2 stroke, 3 cylinder motors (same motors used on the 2 boats). Those motors saw lots of action and came up trumps in spite of some major problems along the way. Let me relate some of those stories as examples:

1. There is a shop in Johannesburg called 'Motor Books'. Either go there or find a similar retailer who can provide you with a service guide for your motors. The book I bought was a teaching manual for outboard mechanics, learning to service a range of Yamamha motors, and was extremely useful. Good simple text, lots of pictures and helpful hints. It was always carried on the boat as part of the normal emergency gear.

2. When the motors were bought, a magnet in one of the starter motors was fractured. It needed to be replaced. I learned a valuable lesson. If you buy the parts via the dealer, they WILL take their pound of flesh. You should look around, consider ebay, pirate parts or chat to local motorboat dealers who may have secondhand spares.

3. Check your sparkplugs. The manual clearly described what a healthy plug would look like. Make sure that the correct plugs are being used and that the gap is correct (usually the case if you buy new ones but it is always worth a check). My motors were serviced by a professional and he put the wrong plugs in (that is what happens when you don't check the manual) .

4. Don't be intimidated by the motors. The more you work on them, the more confident you become about sorting out problems. I was plagued by a motor that suddenly would not start. With 2 motors it was easy to swop items between the motors until I figured out the 'start-in-gear' switch was broken. Since all my launches were through the heavy Natal surf, the switch represented an unnecessary hassle and was bypassed (cut them off!). The motors would start in gear which was really useful with some of the nasty launches we encountered. If you only had 1 motor, use a digital camera to photograph the dismantling process, then you have a record of how to put everything back together without ending up with a handful of 'spare' parts.

5. My boat almost went up in flames when a short caused a small fire. After that the batteriers were always disconnected after use. There was a set of jumper-cables in the usual gear stowed on the boat. Since there were 2 motors, there were 2 separate batteries. This was useful if a battery was flat. Once the one motor was running it was a simple affair to start the other motor (this is not something you want to do in the waves so make sure you keep your batteries charged and properly serviced).

6. Don't sweat it if your motor fails at sea. Be logical. Secure your boat with an anchor if necessary and if possible to prevent you drifting too far or into trouble. Now go through the following sequence:
a. Check that the emergency cut-off clips are secured and in place.
b. Ensure that the battery terminals are clean and correctly attached to the battery.
c. Check the fuel line is connected, bulb pumped and sufficient fuel in tanks.
d. Ensure controls are in neutral if you have a functional 'start-in-gear' switch.

In the majority of cases that sequence would give you a running motor.

7. Carry some spare parts e.g. set of new sparkplugs for each motor, prop-lock nut and spare split pin. It is also worthwhile carrying a reasonable set of tools including spanners, screwdrivers and plug spanner. A couple of multi-tools and some shifting spanners are indispensable. Additional pieces of equipment that were useful: feeler guage (measure the gaps of sparkplugs), piece of emery paper, small wire brushes and silicone spray (WD40/Q20). It is worthwhile carrying a spare impeller for each motor, chances are you will probably need to replace one at 6pm on a Saturday night and that is when a spare is useful.

8. Take time to frequently inspect your engine. Changing plugs, checking wiring harnesses, removing props and cleaning, dropping the lower unit to change impellers and ensuring the crank has adequate oil, are essential and easy tasks. Regularly conducted, they build confidence to work with your motor and troubleshoot if necessary.

9. Always run your motors with the muffs on after taking it out on a trip. Listen for anything loose or different. Ensure that water is flowing freely through the cooling system (this sometimes does need to be flushed: pieces of rusted metal and sand do make their way through the cooling system and usually block the outlet). Part of the preparation before a trip should be to run the motors for some time on several occasions before the trip, to highlight any possible malfunctions. The muffs are intended for motors running at low revs, they are INADEQUATE when running a motor at high revs. NEVER dry start your motor, only 3 seconds of dry running irreversibly damages the impeller!

10. Finally, if you intend launching through surf take a good time to warm up both motors adequately. Low revs are fine and a good 5-10 minutes should provide you with a trouble free launch.

19 March 2009

2009-03-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

I was not expecting to be out diving yesterday but it was a welcome phone call that had me loading my gear into the car and making my way to Michael's house before first light. Joining us for the day of diving was Kurt one of our dive mates. We launched from Arrawarra onto an absolutely flat sea and headed out toward NW Solitary Island. Recently the current has been shunting from the N, always a welcome set of circumstances. As we cleared the headland at Arrawarra the predicted S hit us with avengence. Fortunately we were moving with the direction of the swell and we quickly pulled up to NW Solitary. I jumped in to the delightfully warm and crystal clear water. Unfortunately the area we were hoping to find fish in, was empty. There was also hardly any current.

On to the Pinnacles at the Big Island. We motored around looking for showings of baitfish and eventually found them hanging on the seaward side of the pinnacle. Over went the anchor and we started swimming upcurrent looking for our quarry. Today expectations were high for Wahoo. There was hardly any current, a trickle from the S. The pinnacle had bait and pelagics gathered up together. I saw Mack Tuna both big slow swimmers and the little speedsters, following these were considerable schools of flighty Yellowfin Tuna. The big Mack Tuna make relatively easy targets but the Yellowfin obviously know they are an intended target and don't hang around when you dive. There was a huge school of Yellowtail Kingfish probably numbering in the thousands and in between these I saw Trevally too. I am sure if one had spent more time observing the school, there would have been other pelagics mixed in with the Yellowtail. Kurt got a Cobia out of a group of approximately 10 that he saw following a Black Ray.

We moved to the N end of the Big Island and started diving the seaward drop-off on the edge of the reserve. I encountered some Rainbow Runner but I was not going to shoot at a lesser target when big game was on the cards. This was a good call because as I turned the massive shape of a Queensland Grouper loomed up next to me. The fish could easily have gone over 100kg. Better known as Brindle Bass where I come from I have rarely seen specimens this size unless scuba diving on wrecks. I am sure I would have had a major tussle with this fish had I shot a small Rainbow Runner. I made my way back to the boat only to have Kurt join me with a Spanish Mackerel. Kudos to him. Michael and I were eating humble pie.

Next stop the S end of the Big Island. This is a good spot for Bluebar Parrotfish and Pelagics. I dived and encountered a small Samsonfish. The shot should have been good but a Black Cod gave the fish so much grief that the spear came unstuck. I noticed lots of Black Rays around and took to checking for Cobia. I did not realise Michael had already seen some Cobia which would not offer a shot. After a good breath-up and surface preparation, I dropped to about 22m and watched as 2 large Black Rays came over to investigate me. I hung still in the water, following them was a reasonable Cobia. The fish followed the rays coming over to look at me then angling away. My plan is to improve my technique, so I concentrated on making a good shot. The spear hit the fish high on the left shoulder angling down to the right pectoral fin, in the process smashing the spine. The fish rolled over without so much as a twitch. By this time the sea was getting very rough and we elected to move to a shallower spot: Spooky.

Spooky gets its name from an encounter Michael had on this shallow reef with a White Pointer. On my first dive I swam into a school of Bonito but left them as I was looking for better quarry, that will not be happening next weekend. I drifted to the bottom several times, not finding anything. This was likely considering the bait in the area was swimming around completely relaxed. I eventually dived on the edge of the reef arriving on the sand and lay still with my eyes closed. When I opened them a small Venus Tuskfish was in front of my spear. I took the small fish and saw several more on subsequent dives. Michael surprized us by rustling up a Mangrove Jack from directly under the anchored boat. Will his luck ever run out?

I will probably get into the water one more time before the Classic just to check conditions and have a quick look at the available species. After the Classic it is back to South Africa on holiday and my site will be a little quiet until I get back to Coffs Harbour.

16 March 2009

2009-03-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

The weather was quite forgiving over the weekend and I managed to get out both Saturday and Sunday. Expectations were high on Saturday because I had heard that John Featherstone and some friends had found a school of big Samsonfish at a recently discovered pinnacle. The smallest fish was 15kg and the largest a whopping 22.5kg. Great fish and a great effort.

We launched from Coffs and headed to the Lighthouse where I freedived and just looked around as we were in the reserve. Then moved off to Black Rock and around the Wash. I was just not making the shots count or turning seen fish into landed fish. Yellowtail Kingfish were around as were Amberjack. I dived on Cobia and should have made a good shot but didn't. We did see some Tailor and Silver Trevally but these are really not worthwhile pursuing unless in a competition.

We ventured out wide and the viz was spectatcular. Gin clear, warm water that just screams pelagics. I saw huge numbers of Dorado and took 2 smallish fish that just went size. Every trap we stopped at out wide had a contingent of Dorado.

We travelled back to Coffs in the late morning, stopping at the Wave Recorder for a quick look. The sea was putrid. Poor viz but interestingly lots of fish working. The downside was that every time I saw a fish I was hesitant to take the shot, knowing that Kris was in that direction. There were Rainbow Runner, Mack Tuna and Dorado but the best was seeing a Wahoo, it was very flighty and I am not sure if it came back to look at me the viz was that bad.

I heard that evening that divers out at the Big Island had successfully landed some Wahoo and seen several schools of various sizes which bodes well for the Classic.

Justin struggled to find crew for Sunday which was surprizing but the 2 of us again launched from Coffs. We had intended going from Arrawarra which may have been difficult with only 2 divers. We looked around for some clean water to dive, hoping to get in some good deep diving practice but the current had not pushed the clean water in yet. The current was pushing strongly from the N and should move that clean water right in if the rivers don't spill mud out again. We eventually went and checked out the FAD and some fish traps but there wasn't anything really worthwhile and we called it a day quite early.

Michael and I are avidly putting our plan together for the Classic and trying to work out the best route to follow to cover as much ground as possible. Obviously one wants to hit areas that other divers pass as the increased boat traffic and diver presence does put the fish off.

13 March 2009

2009-03-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

Unlucky Friday the 13th. Only unlucky thing are the poor buggers working in this great weather. Clear blue skies, great clean, warm sea that just screams FISH! I am at work but preparing for a good weekend of spearfishing.

Just recently, a good Blue and Black Marlin have been tagged and released off Coffs, with reports of some small Black Marlin being seen from the Southern harbour breakwater. A little S of our normal hunting grounds, fishermen have had a field day with Spotted Mackerel (very similar to Natal Snoek) and Spanish. The first big mackerel that I have heard of, this season, has been taken, a fish of 28kg. What an awesome fish and I can easily imagine getting a fish like that on spear. Having said that, I am looking at the photo of a 40kg Spanish taken by Michael several years ago. The head is in his freezer at home and looks quite formidable. There have also been some very good Snapper weighed recently but when it comes to hunting these, you really need a long breath and a great deal of patience or just some real good luck.

Thursday 12 March 2009

2009-03-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday 7 March was the last club competition. Coffs Harbour Bluewater Freedivers arrange an annual trip to a spearfishing venue as a club holiday. Lots of frivolity and good times but some diving thrown in.

Conditions had been reasonable. The chocolate had cleared a lot and earlier in the week, divers had reported great sightings around the Big Island. We were at Wooli about 2 hrs N of Coffs and considerably closer to the Big Island. For a change there was a great attendance with almost all the club members competing. We even had some visitors from Nambucca join us.

Michael and I decided to look at the Big Island, while some divers headed further N. We found hardly any current which tends to throw a spanner in the works. A number of boats had already stationed themselves over the pinnacles N of the Big Island and we moved to the gutters in front of NW rocks. I don't know if there is anything as disappointing as lying on the bottom in clean, warm water and seeing nothing. I dived for a 1/2 hour and found I had hardly drifted away from the anchored boat at all.

Next move to the S end of the island. On the first dive I mess up with a Bluebar and that seemed to set the mood for the day. I soon missed another Bluebar. I was not very comfortable with my recent gun setup. Changed the Freedivers spear to something else, after it was bent and the new spear was affecting my aim. I found some Scads being harassed by monster Mack Tuna (Kawakawa) around the 7kg mark. They did not behave like the smaller speedsters of their species do. They hung around looking at me. Oh well at least I would weigh something. Forget it. My aim was way off and I missed on both chances I had. I was sore about that because both fish were sitters and should have been a sure thing.

Kept at it, pounding away at the deep dives and encountered some Tailor on my way up. Over-excitement chased them before I could take a shot and then to make matters worse I found a Bluebar at about 22m and it was quite calm. I lay still paying it no attention and the longer I lay the more excited it became, until it shot off farting out bits of coral. I climbed into the boat nursing a severely bruised ego.

Michael took one shot all day, nailing 2 Bludger at the same time. Back at the weigh in, some nice fish were put onto the scales. John had a nice bag of Moses Perch, Mangrove Jack, Bluebar and Maori Cod but Kurt's 5.5kg Bluebar was voted the best fish of the day. Fortunately the guys from Nambucca were only over for a friendly. Between 2 of their divers, they got a lovely Samsonfish and 3 Spanish, so the fish are around.

Being quiet is important. It starts when working at the surface, not banging on the hull of the boat to when you dive, gliding in to the bottom. Try not to bash your gear around on the bottom or scrape your fins over the bottom. Some divers have a clever technique of pulling themselves along the bottom with their free arm thus limiting the racket they create. Your eyes seem to give your intentions away. Try to avoid looking directly at your quarry. Keep your eyes slightly closed or away from the fish.

At the moment Cyclone Hamish is stuffing the conditions up completely and the weather predictions are for a clearing this weekend. Let's hope.

5 March 2009

2009-03-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

Dived on Sunday 1st March in the club competition. Conditions looked good but as it panned out, the situation was still a little mucky and you had to move around to find suitable conditions. We started at the wave recorder and the Coffs FAD. The conditions at the wave recorder were poor but the FAD was quite spectacular, unfortunately there were very few fish around. Met up with some other divers at the FAD who were going to call it a day because the water was so putrid. We persevered and actually went back to where these divers had just come from. The conditions were still mucky and I still had no fish.

We moved inshore about 500m from the Lighthouse and the situation improved quite dramatically. Viz was better and there were many more fish around. In the end I got an Amberjack, Samsonfish, Rainbow Runner and a Fusilier. That closes my account for Rainbow Runners and Fusiliers. Michael whacked me again. He weighed Samsonfish, Yellowtail, Amberjack, Rainbow Runner and a nice Mangrove Jack. The Jack came from a school of 4 good fish found in really shallow water. I almost lost my Amberjack to a Whaler that gave me a really hard time.

Since the weekend, I have had reports of some good fish seen at the Big Island. During a dive, several large Wahoo attacked a school of smallish Yellowfin Tuna. The Yellowfin were in a school with some very big Mack Tuna. Some time into the dive, 2 small Black Marlin were also encountered. Yesterday John took some divers back to the Big Island and they got some smallish Spanish, again the Yellowfin and Mack Tuna were around. On one of the shallower reefs, Mantas were found and following them a school of big Cobia. A Cobia of 22.5kg was landed from the school, the diver in question spearing it 3 times before managing to subdue it.

This weekend is the March club competition coinciding with the club annual trip. We are going about 2 hours N to Wooli. All things point to a good weekend of diving. So lots of Sushi and fresh fish for supper this weekend.

26 February 2009

2009-02-25T20:40:00.000-08:00

Went for a quick dive yesterday. The S has brought in warm water but the sea still looks dirty. We decided to go out wide. Left at Sparrow's fart or half past stupid as a friend describes the crack of dawn. Headed out to the wave-recorder. Recently there has been some clean warm water out near the continental shelf and we were hoping for some of that. Some divers have managed the odd Dorado, one even jumping in just outside the harbour to check out conditions, finding a school of huge Cobia. He did not have a gun but one was quickly provided and a good Cobia shot. The rest of the day they scratched.

We jumped in but the water at the surface was dirty, down to about 3 metres. Not cold but not warm like we expected. I took a dive through the muck and found clean blue water below that felt considerably warmer. The fish were hanging in this warmer water. My nerve was shot because I kept expecting to see something big with lots of teeth come up to me. The conditions were just not to my liking. A White took a chunk out of a surfboard about 40km S of Coffs 2 days ago and that picture is still fresh in my mind. We looked at some fish traps in the area but only small Dorado were seen. A fresh NW was starting up making the boating unpleasant so we decided to head back for an early breakfast and try some deer-hunting with bows instead.

This Sunday is the next club competition and I really hope the situation improves. Although in shallower water, one is really not too fussed over being able to see from the surface unless you are trying to orientate yourself on the reef. It would be great to have some decent viz for a change.

19 February 2009

2009-02-18T20:29:00.000-08:00

What a strange set of circumstances. The worst natural disaster in Australian history befell Victoria with the state ravaged by bush-fires. At the same time a series of tropical storms brought masses of rain into Queensland, resulting in many small towns becoming isolated because of flooding.

Recently Coffs Harbour has been exposed to massive Southerlies, great for flushing out the left-over cold dirty winter water but with the S came a torrential downpour. In one 24hr period 0.25m of water was recorded. When people start expressing rainfall in metres things are serious. Some of the areas around Coffs have been declared disaster areas too. What of the ocean. The rivers have pumped tons of silt-laden water into the sea but on a more positive note, it appears that the warm EAC water may be here. Just a question of being patient and allowing the sea to clear.

13 February 2009

2009-02-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

One might be inclined to think unlucky Friday 13th but in the previous 2 days I have heard of 3 separate shark attacks. A Navy diver was attacked in Sydney Harbour in the early morning. In typical Navy diver fashion he climbed into the shark punching and fighting it off. The following day a surfer N of us was attacked on his board. The shark missed him but left an impressive bite mark in his board. Yesterday evening, a surfer lost his arm to a shark at Bondi. These are all believed to be Bull Shark encounters. The general consensus amongst divers is that the level of aggression in sharks appears to be elevated. This is more than likely the result of breeding, increased numbers of prey species and increased water temperatures.

The S has been consistant for the previous 3 days and is predicted to continue for another 3 days at least, which means the warm water should be on the beach by Wednesday next week. While this is welcome it is sensible to exercise some caution as sharks are likely to be far more inquisitive and unpredictable.

12 February 2009

2009-02-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

The EAC has been running strongly out deep but it is diverted from Byron Bay, some km's N of us and only swings into the coast near SW Rocks, S of us. When looking at the sea surface temperatures and currents it remains obvious that some cold unpleasant winter water has been trapped off the Coffs Coast and will not be replaced until a strong S weather system forces fresh water in. The cold winter water is nutrient rich and mixed with the warmer water resulted in a tremendous algal bloom. This cut viz right down and since the conditions have been settled, the thermocline is back.

I managed to get in on Friday just before the weekend rush. We dived hard and travelled a massive distance but had little to show for it. A small Dorado, Yellowtail Kingfish and a small unlucky Spanish were the only fish of note. There were no sharks around and I am confident that if there are no sharks, there are no fish. When we got back to Coffs Harbour, the tide was low and the recent swell had deposited a large quantity of sand at the approach to the small craft ramp. Made for an interesting approach on the back of a wave just to have enough water under the boat. Apparently later that day and on Saturday, several boats were unable to get in until high tide. The dredge has been roped in to open the approach.

Sunday, we had some time to get out and do some diving. On Saturday, several Mantas had been seen with a huge entourage of large Cobia. We were after some Cobia and took a good look at Chopper and NW Solitary Island. Unfortunately there was nothing worthwhile and the conditions were foul. An early halt to proceedings ensued with an early breakfast in the offing.

At the moment a strong S system is active off our coast and this should eventually herald the start of some great conditions.

2 February 2009

2009-02-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday saw the commencement of the first club competition for the year following on the cancellation last weekend. We launched from Arrawarra N of Woolgoolga. This gave us access to the N Islands, pinnacles and reefs. We headed out to the Big Island (North Solitary) and from there to the Wooli FAD. The sea was literally full of Dorado, hundreds and hundreds of them but nothing worth having a go at. Even the Yellowtail directly under the FAD were too small to warrant taking anything. Michael and I ended up with a Rainbow Runner each, for our efforts. The rules for the club comp is that you may only weigh 2 of each species for the year. The score for the species being higher than the weight but the weight is also ranked according to the expected maximum weight of the species for this area based on previous club records.

We moved to the pinnacles N of the Big Island but only managed some Fusiliers. The drift from the E of NW Rocks towards the Big Island produced 2 Goldspot Wrasse for me and a small Spanish for Michael. We continued scratching at various reefs, caves and supposed hotspots and Michael managed to rustle up some meagre reward in the form of a Goatfish and some Frigate Tuna, while I managed a small Yellowtail. In the end only Michael, Asher and myself weighed fish. Part of the challenge is knowing what to weigh and when. Last year half of the club competitions were cancelled because of poor conditions. This means you could realistically be shooting great quality fish but when it comes to a competition you may be scratching around for points through no fault of your own.

I took my first Samsonfish and it really is a handsome looking fish. Perhaps a little darker than Amberjack with a forehead reminiscent of a Giant Trevally. The smaller ones, which mine was, flash a dark barred pattern similar to a Bludger. Other fish weighed included Silver Trevally and Blue Morwong, for all intents and purposes think along the lines of a small Cape Bankie. There were none of the fish of legendary size like 30kg yellowtail, 20kg mackerel or 30kg+ Wahoo, never mind the big Dorado which have been seen and taken recently.

29 January 2009

2009-01-28T16:07:00.000-08:00

A day away from the hectic life of being a veterinarian to the hectic life of being a SPEARO. The Ocean has been spectacular for the passed few days. Buoyweather predicted light S winds and all the reports we had were of great diving conditions. Michael, John and I got together at Coffs Harbour launch ramp before the sun was anywhere near the horizon. The sun crept over the horizon as we approached the wave recording buoy. Fish were leaping to escape submerged predators which is always a good sign. It did not take long to kit up and jump in. John spotted the school of Dorado first and started looking for a good specimen. He picked up on it too late because my spear hit it squarely near the pectoral fin. First drift and a good fish in the esky already.

We had co-ords for some fish traps and we were soon on our way to these, John being convinced he was going to get something big. First stop yielded nothing, second stop nothing, then the rest of the co-ords proved useless, the traps having been moved. Moved on to the FAD. Michael picked up another good Dorado but John was having one of those days, dropping 2 nice fish. Just as expected, the fish became shy after the first few drifts. This can be especially frustrating when you can see an ocean full of Dorado but you cannot get near them.

The next move was to water with a bottom. We stopped in the bay at South Solitary Island looking for Spanish. There was a distinct fishy smell, something I have noticed when fish have been feeding heavily on oily bait. There were no Spanish but as I lay on the bottom, a school of large Tailor(Bluefish in the USA, Shad/Elf in SA) swam into range. True to form the fish seemed unaware of me on the bottom. I selected a good fish and whacked it through the head, from below. These fish are very difficult to shoot from above because they zoom through the water as if everything wants to eat them. Just another species which supports my idea that it is much easier to get to a fish from below than above.

We then moved into deeper water, looking for Sambos and Wahoo. We found lots of Crocodile Gar which can only mean the Wahoo are going to be around in numbers soon. Michael dropped a large Jewfish and then landed a nice Samsonfish. I lost a Sambo too but then found a big Yellowtail King. I was on my way to get a Jew when the King swam in under me. I lined up for a head shot but the spear went through the shoulder and missed the spine. The fish dragged me along at some speed and I think the struggling fish enticed a shark which started following me. This is all conjecture because the fish broke free and I suddenly came to a stop in the sea. That was when I felt a massive strike on my right fin. The shark must have come out of the water at that stage, I rolled to see the shark pass next to me and then down, not to be seen again. Everything happened so quickly I can only guess at the species but I think it was probably a Bronze Whaler. I headed back to the boat to check my fins, nothing, not a mark. I can only surmise the shark was coming up at me then realised after it had committed that I was not worth eating. I think the impact on the fin was the shark's unchecked approach after it had committed itself.

We moved again, to N of Groper Island. This is out of the extensive reserve around Groper and is a small highly prized spot. John picked up a Striped Tuna but it did little to appease his agony at not being able to land anything worthwhile. Michael soon loaded a Gold-spot Wrasse, then a Mangrove Jack. I was disappointed because I had just come away from the school of Bulls-eye hanging close together, apparently a prime indicator for Pearl Perch when Michael dropped in and smacked the Jack. I dropped down again intent on a Jack. The bait closed around me but I moved deeper. There was colour and movement, 2 Bluebar Parrots. I tracked the larger of the 2 and successfully took it. These fish are always skittish but amongst the bait they were very approachable.

A while later, I made a deep dive and spotted what looked like a Jack. As it came closer I noticed the black mark on its saddle. This was a species of snapper I had never encountered. I lay very still allowing its approach. I lined up well before the fish turned to offer a shot and the spear went through its gill plate coming out above the jaw on the other side. Identified as a Moses Perch and is good eating. Michael's gun started playing up and he was fretting on the boat. I shouted to him to get his back-up and get back in. He did just that, only to drop in on a school of Spanish and another into the esky.

Between the 3 of us the bag was 2 Dorado, Striped Tuna, Gold-spot Wrasse, Samsonfish, Mangrove Jack, Bluebar Parrot, Moses Perch, Tailor and a Spanish. Not a bad haul for what seemed a quiet day of spearfishing. The bag of fish looked quite amazing with the range of colours. John endured a great deal of ragging and I have no doubt when the tables are turned, I will be in for a fair share myself.

Michael kindly prepared a few different species last night, in beer-batter, and these tasty morsels were scoffed with some really good home-brewed beer. I wonder if I could be more content than I am right now.

Several points worth remembering were the presence of several good fish amongst the dense school of Bulls-eye, the enormous numbers of Garfish, always a good indicator of surface predators and try to get your big Dorado quickly because the longer you wait the less chance you are going to get. Lastly, we stopped off in a reserve area to practice some breath-holds. On descent there would be no fish, but as you lay on the bottom, the numbers stacked up around you. I noticed on a dive with a bottom time of 2.5 minutes that there were fish coming to see what was happening from a long way away, beyond the edge of viz. Obviously the diver is new and worth investigating and as the fish move into the area they produce low intensity vibrations which arouse the curiosity of others, the more fish hanging around, the more attention the diver will attract.

27 January 2009

2009-01-26T21:33:00.000-08:00

Sunday was to be the club comp day. A NE had been blowing moderately, turning the shallows into milky muck. Then a strong S was expected, dropping off to a light S by Sunday morning. Perfect conditions: warm, clear water, perhaps a little choppy on the surface but that always seems to turn the fish on. Arrived at the launch at Arrawarra with the trees straining in a hefty S. The sea was on its head. Comp postponed to next Sunday.

Disappointment was clear on everyones' faces. I was keen to give my new DiveR carbon fins a go. Took them to the pool instead this morning. There have been the odd good fish coming out. Late Sunday afternoon and Monday (Australia Day i.e beer & braai) had great promise. Several Dorado were taken off the buoys and fish traps in the area over the 2 days. I heard of a Mangrove Jack, Purple Cod and Gold-spotted Wrasse taken yesterday.

Conditions over the next few days are great. Light S, the sea is absolutely beautiful. It is clean and warm, reminiscent of that Mozambique water you hope for in Sodwana or off Aliwal. The viz is around 30m+. Offshore the fisherlmen have had a hard time with little to show for their effort. Tomorrow should be a perla day and I have a long diving session planned.

Club Competition has an interesting format. There is a very limited list of really good fish on the list and each diver may only weigh 2 of each species for the year. You need to be a consistant diver throughout the year to have a shot at being club champion.

22 January 2009

2009-01-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

The ocean appears to be settling down very nicely and has looked extremely inviting over the last week or so. I was fortunate enough to get out for a quick dive on Sunday. Conditions were still unsettled after the S blow but the sea was warm, with reasonable viz. There was a considerable current pushing S-N which had us starting just S of NW Solitary Island. The area was very fishy, lots of bait and indicators hanging around. On the first dive I saw a large school of good Yellowtail but they were reluctant to allow any approach. Headed upcurrent to prepare for another drift when a good 'Tail swam under me. It was an easy dive but the fish seemed quite flighty. I stopped to allow it to settle and started flicking my fingers at it. A small school of Yellowtail came in for a look, I selected a good fish and shot, hoping for an immediate kill. It was a good shot but slightly further back than I would have hoped. The fish bolted N dragging me along.

Getting the fish under control took considerable effort but once it was on its back I was able to dispatch it easily. I reloaded my gun and popped up for a look at where the boat was. It was a good 1.5km away. What ensued was a 1/2 hr swim back to the boat to load the 'Tail. All the divers got fish with Michael taking a nice 16kg specimen. Justin had a school of Cobia swim up to look at the second Yellowtail he shot, unfortunately the rest of us weren't close enough to get in on the Cobia action. Saw a few small Spanish but they were very shy. Some Bonnies came through, Sarda sp, and Michael took one, which made excellent sushi. Michael prepared some of the 'Tail yesterday by marinading it in Green Thai Curry and lime then onto the barbecue with a basting of coconut milk, mint and coriander. The fish was served in a wrap with Basil and tomato...spectacular.

Passed John on Sunday, he was on his way out to N Solitary. They got some good Mangrove Jacks in very deep water which bodes well for the future. There is still stacks of bait around and there are reports of fishermen getting some Spotted Mackerel (very similar to Natal Snoek) just S of us. Got my new rigid DiveR blades which I am very keen to fit to my fins. Sincerely hope that the effort required to do the deep dives will be markedly reduced.

Sunday is the club competition and I have decided to be more active in participating this year, now that I am settled in. I also want to get a better look at some of the spots before the Bluewater Classic at the end of March.

15 January 2009

2009-01-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

My lack of diving continues unabated. I am almost depressed by the prospects of working while the spectacle of a calm ocean haunts my dreams. A strong S did push in over the weekend but it blew itself out way too quickly. Predictions are for another extended S blow this weekend.

It appears that sharks are thick all around Australia. A youngster was investigated twice by a 5m White off Tasmania and fortunately her cousin came to her aid and it is very likely his brave action saved her life. In my neck of the woods there have been 2 incidents involving Bull Sharks attacking surfers in shallow water. Some friends were diving recently when a Grey Nurse came up to the surface and investigated the one diver's flashers before turning and making some threatening moves at the diver on the surface, this in approx 20m water!

From a fish point of view, the diving has been hard but the glory goes to those who persevere. I heard of several Cobia, Wahoo and Amberjack being landed. Interestingly the Amberjack and Cobia appear to have come from particularly deep dives 30m+. One Wahoo was shot at by a diver on the surface when he estimated the fish to be 4kg. The fish was taken by a dive buddy and turned out to be over 10kg. Clean blue water can play havoc on your ability to judge fish size. When you believe you are close enough GET CLOSER.

2 January 2009

2009-01-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

My diving has been shelved over the last few weeks. When the Ocean looked good, I was at work and when I was available, the conditions turned to crap. The first half of the month was quite good but the second half has been really shoddy. Now that the excuses are out of the way, there have been some fish landed.

In the last week there have been some Dorado taken, as well as a Jewfish. My grapevine informs me that several Marlin have been seen around North Solitary Island (Big Island). I even heard of a Wahoo that was dropped at the FAD off Coffs. The guys also saw a Mako jumping around at the FAD, no surprise that the Dorado were so flighty then! The reason for the poor results has been the light NE which has kept a cold, dirty thermocline at the 15-20m level.

All predictions are for a hefty S blow over the next week which should finally push the good water in against the shore. It would be great to have some consistent conditions to dive in again. I am looking forward to a great year of diving. I hope to bump into one of the big Spanish around Pig Island this year. Last year a fish of over 40kg was taken on rod-and-line.

19 December 2008

2008-12-18T15:53:00.000-08:00

The last few days have seen little diving on my part. I have been busy helping my family move into our new home and arrange everything to their liking. Always good to be accumulating brownie points for later use when the weather improves.

Wednesday was my day off and I went diving with John and Michael Featherstone and Kris Banks. There has not been a substantial S blow yet and we still have a thermocline at around 15m (cold, dirty and really spooky).

Started at the FAD. Water was quite clear and warm. Massive school of Yellowtail mixed with Rainbow Runners and small Dorado. There was no indication of any bigger fish. We even tried pinning one of the smaller Dorado to encourage bigger fish to come and have a look. No luck. We then moved to the reef N of the Big Island (Hitler's). This was comfortable diving all above the thermocline. There was very little current which allowed a thorough look at the area. I stuffed up on a big Green Jobfish. Instead of lying still and patiently waiting for it to come closer, I tried to chase it. Total waste of time, fish disappeared pretty smartly. Due reward was collected shortly afterwards. A school of small Yellowtail swam up to me, I tucked over to look behind me and saw a Spanish following the 'Tail. Turned and tracked it. The fish initially raced off then seemed to stop and glide to the left, right into my target area. That is my first Spanish this season, not big but my dance card has been opened.

We moved around to the S side of the Big Island. The viz opened up beautifully. Viz down to 20m+. Lots of bait around and several schools of small 'Tail and Amberjack. I was looking for Wahoo or Cobia. Found several massive Black Rays at around 20m and diligently looked under them for Cobia. Encountered an Eagle Ray with an Amberjack but the ray spooked and took the Amberjack with it. Shoaling Hammerheads came through in a school of about 30 sharks. True to form, they were very skittish. When I thought I was not going to see a Cobia, dropped down to check out a ray and found 2 Cobia. What a blast taking a Cobia in such a classic situation. By this stage we had rustled up 2 Spanish, a Blue-Bar Parrotfish and the small Dorado.

We did our best to find some Mangrove Jacks but the conditions were deteriorating. We elected to move to The Wash. Again the thermocline was found at about 15m. I could find no fish in the dirty cold water but around the pinnacles there were plenty. Took a reasonable Yellowtail and as I tried to put my hand into its gills it broke free. Then I found a school of large Big-Eye Trevally. The school seemed very flighty almost harassed. Every dive at them, had them scuttling off into the deep, only to return several minutes later. With their next pass I exhaled and slowly sank down to them. This gave me a closer look and I managed to pin one. It fought very strongly and scraped along the reef, dislodging the spear.

We decided to call it a day and head back to Arrawarra. The Cobia is in the fridge being prepared as Gravlax and the 'Couta in a brining solution for smoking today.

The weather this weekend does not look good for diving but a quick jaunt out to look for Dorado may be a good bet. If that fails, I will take my bow out and go looking for some deer on the surrounding hills. I am really in need of some good old fashioned BILTONG!

9 December 2008

2008-12-07T21:58:00.000-08:00

Buoyweather has been a little on the conservative side recently. Indications have been of really poor weather but we have been enjoying some very settled, clear and warm sea. On Saturday, some dive mates convinced me to go out to the local wave-recording buoy. Apparently, news of some Dorado was doing the rounds. The sky looked pretty ominous and the swell was quite impressive but we made the most of it. I have found the wave-recorder to be quite mediocre to date. I drifted toward it in the strong current, fully expecting the usual Yellowtail creche to come out to great me. What a pleasant surprise to see a school of Dorado swim past. My shot was poor but Justin nabbed one, not big but a great start. A few more drifts saw Kurt and I heading toward the recorder. I saw the school and started to stalk them but Justin began shouting at me from the boat. I looked across to see Kurt into a nice bull. It fought like a demon. Fortunately, I was in time to make a securing shot. It weighed a convincing 13kg.

Kris took some friends to dive at Split Solitary on Monday. The conditions were great and I did not need much convincing to head out with him on Tuesday. The NE had churned the sea up a little. Viz was poor, around 8m, but the sea was quite warm. I made several dives on a school of small Yellowtail but nothing worthwhile was in the offing. I made a dive to the bottom to lie and wait for something to come knocking. Something did. On the edge of viz a large shape loomed, distinct white belly, dark back. The shark stayed on the periphery, in the gloom. I decided it was probably a Raggie but the consensus is that it may have been a little White. A short while later, a Raggie came up to have a good look at me in midwater. With the poor viz, the shark activity and the lack of suitable quarry, we decided to call it a day.

Big family excitement. We have been flitting from one holiday accommodation to another and finally we now could move into our new home. To celebrate, John Featherstone suggested we go diving.

Friday had us heading out to the Coffs FAD. I jumped in and surprised a Marlin. I don't know who was more startled. The Marlin obviously had chased any other quarry away from the FAD. We headed to Grouper but the water was mucky. The N-S current convinced us to head to the N end of Grouper. We took a few Yellowtail but then the Raggies showed up again. They were very feisty. Discretion being the better part of valour, we elected to try Black Rock. What an exciting place to dive. The rock sticks up out of 20m of water. We encountered lots of bait in the vicinity but the current pushed us off the hotspot very quickly. I did manage to shoot a large Yellowtail that took me way upcurrent. This made for a few anxious moments with 2 divers being separated by a few hundred metres.

We moved onto The Small Wash near Black Rock. This is another inspiring spot that just seems to scream fish. We were hoping for a large Amberjack or Samsonfish but were prepared to settle for a Cobia or Jew. Unfortunately, our quarry were not co-operating. We dived hard and at one point, I thought, as I finned along the surface, that I had just seen a Cobia. I quickly ducked down to be confronted by the largest Yellowtail I have seen up to now. I made a good holding shot. The shot was confirmed by Kris and John, both happy that the fish was secure. Moments later I was dragged down about 15m by the seemingly very alive fish. Then nothing..... gone! Perhaps the Raggies were enjoying what they perceived as their just desserts.

The weekend was spent unpacking and sorting through our boxes from South Africa. The club held a competition on Sunday which seems to have been very productive. Yellowtail Kings featured extensively but then there were Samsonfish and Cobia tossed into the mix. The luckier divers managed some Pearl Perch, Mangrove Jack and Red Bass (Bohar Snapper).

The weather is spectacular and I am keen to get out and try some new things I have read on www.saspearoranking.co.za. I am intending to restring my 1.4m gun with dyneema directly from the reel to the spear, leaving the clips and bungee off. The other piece of gear I intend acquiring is a belt-reel. This will allow an additional length of line available, to clip to the gun, if something big strips the line off the reel on the gun. These belt-reel are available from Rabitech.

26 November 2008

2008-11-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

The cloudy rainy weather appears to have settled in for the time being but the EAC is sitting in very close on most days. In spite of the sea being a little rougher than normal, it has been clean and extremely diveable. The results are starting to speak for themselves.

On Sunday past, went out with Kris, to the E side of Split. Ocean was pretty rough and the W wind was causing the waves to break backwards! Behind Split we had some respite and I started burleying some pilchards. The viz was poor but the sea was a comfortable 22. I was quickly surrounded by a ball of interested fish. Started diving to the bottom about 19m and continued the burleying. Apart from the ravenous bait ball, there were very few additional enquiries. I was starting to feel like a much maligned, door-to-door salesman, when an Amberjack showed up amongst the bait. It was quickly dispatched. Some damage to one of the pontoons on the rubber-duck cut our diving short.

The sea was really settled on Monday and I decided to take a swim, after work, off Korora Beach. Bumped into 2 mates in the water on their way back. The comments had something to do with a crazy South African going out at this time of night. Although no fish were found, the viz and temperature are improving quite dramatically.

During consulting on Wednesday, phone rings, John Featherstone, what was I doing in the afternoon. I took a moment before saying: DIVING. Good call. The conditions were fantastic. Headed out to the Big Island (North Solitary). Current was running S-N (Uphill according to the locals). Checked out the pinnacles N of NW Rocks, then the gutters N of NW Rocks. All the time Angelo Spada's words were ringing in my ears: 'GO UPCURRENT'.

John suggested looking at the S end of the Big Island. Bait everywhere when I got in. Wishbone snapped. Second gun and a Spanish swims up. Very skittish and just out of range of the back-up gun. I dived and a big Yellowtail comes right up to me. BANG, into the boat. John has loaded a small Spanish. Head off to where the wash is creating a foamy area above a 20m drop. Bait and pelagics all over the place. Yellowtail, Amberjacks, Mack Tuna and Bronze Whalers. I dive again to find a nice sized Rainbow Runner. Follow it for a while as it turns left then right trying to figure out my intentions. Mistake. It ends up on my stringer. I was pulling a flasher at this time and everything seemed interested in it. Dived again, another big Yellowtail, great headshot. Stopped in its tracks, no fight at all. Swim the spoils back to the boat 200m away. Murray loading another Yellowtail. I bumped into a massive wall of good Big-Eye Trevally but they were way too clever to offer a shot. Turned and lined up on a massive Cobia. About to pull the trigger when it dawned on me I was about to plug a Whaler. Pop my head out and both John and Murray are already on the boat getting their gear stowed. Time to head back. Another Spanish comes in but stays just out of range of the gun I am carrying. I try all the tricks I know. Dive down, lie still, feign disinterest, fin toward an interception point, nothing works. The fish is not going to relent and give me a shot. Oh well, my primary gun will soon be sporting a new wishbone and those stand-offish Spanish will get the surprize of their lives at the increased range. John was very excited, he had seen a monster Amberjack, which had stayed out of range, but he had been surrounded by hundreds of Spanish Mackerel. He had noticed Snapper down deep but was afraid to start burleying with all the Whalers about. Murray was feeling a little worse-for-wear but he had lost a good Mackerel and a Blue-Bar Parrotfish. His ego had taken a pounding.

With so many good fish around, everything is on line for a bumper season.

20 November 2008

2008-11-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

Just as I think I am getting to grips with understanding how the weather works, things change and more variables come into the picture. I watch Buoyweather religiously to look for potential breaks in the weather. However, the CSIRO also provide a map of the most recent current and surface sea temperatures. This is indicating a warm patch of water has moved in off Coffs and has been quite stable for the last week. My spearfishing mates have been getting Yellowtail with the odd Samsonfish thrown into the mix. There have been some Pearl Perch taken as well as a Venus Tuskfish which is a highly sought after species resembling a wrasse.

I have not been able to dive since the last swim in from the side, but yesterday we took a quick run out to Bullocky, a small patch of reef about 3km off Coffs Harbour. The current was ripping through and we did not have a suitable marker buoy (I am so looking forward to getting all my gear again). I managed one productive dive, jumping in on a huge school of bait. I noticed a Rainbow Runner and followed it to about 19m where it ended up with a spear through it and soon to be the main star of a Sushi dish.

South of Coffs about an hours drive is a headland called Southwest Rocks. A report came that some spearos got a small Spanish Mackerel there on the weekend which is good for us. That should mean the Spanish ought to be in our area within a week. Apparently a very early start to the season. Here's hoping it will not be a false start.

The Caterpillar Hot Current Gamefishing Tournament was held at Coffs over the previous weekend. The deepsea guys saw the start of the poor weather and some 220 fishers were limited to 1 day of fishing out of 4. 3 Blue Marlin were caught with one being a new NSW record fish, several Yellowfin Tuna and Dorado also made their way to the scales. The bad weather marking the start of the tournament has been with us for more than a week now. The result has been extensive flooding in Brisbane and Sydney. We have been spared the flooding but the continued rain has put a damper on things. I certainly hope the weekend competition will be granted some respite.

13 November 2008

2008-11-12T13:18:00.000-08:00

I thought I was going to be on call this previous weekend and did not have much faith in getting into the Ocean. Saturday, Kris called and wondered if I would be interested in a quick swim off Sawtell, S of Coffs. Michael also informed me, he would be on call. We arrived at Sawtell Headland and did a rock-hop toward the S. The viz had looked good but was not particularly flash when I put my head underwater. We persevered and swam around the headland, toward the island on the N side. I found lots of good gutters, up against the steep sides, but no Jewfish. The wind came up and a strong rip was developing. We called it a day but not before Kris took a nice pan-sized Luderick. I bumped into schools of these fish but they were moving so quickly, I had little chance of taking one. On Tuesday I got a text message that the rock and surf guys, fishing where we jumped in, got into a school of big Snapper. A question of being in the right place at the right time.

Sunday was to be spent with my wife at the local food and wine festival. This was just behind Park Beach. The food was great (lots of local berries included in the desserts), followed by copious quantities of the local wine and beer. I took a quick look at Little Muttonbird Island off Park Beach and the viz was great. Called Kris and took a late afternoon swim. As the afternoon passed into early evening, so the place came alive. Kris is still building his confidence and spent most of the time near me. Just as he moved off to check out some likely reef, a huge Yellowtail came to investigate the Bream (very similar to a Stumpnose) hanging from my buoy. My gun was not loaded and I watched in disbelief as the fish circled me with complete disdain. It is great to see good fish like this off the shallow points. Apparently the population was decimated in previous years by indiscriminate trapping by commercials. Since the ban on trapping has been imposed, the Yellowtail Kings are on their way to recovery.

Reports from my spearing contacts show that the conditions are improving and more trips are coming to fruition. Early in the month, John and Michael got some Pearl Perch N of Arrawarra. These fish were hanging around massive bait shoals. The other interesting point was that several good Mangrove Jacks were also seen amongst the bait but proved to be flighty. John headed out to test the new motor on his 'Spearfishing DownUnder Magazine' boat. They stopped at Middle Ground and took some Samsonfish and Yellowtail. The conditions were pretty good according to the reports I got.

Every Friday the local newspaper publishes the results of the week's recreational fishing. Several Jewfish and Snapper are being landed from the beach. The deepsea guys are taking a fair number too but are also picking up Samsons, 'Tail and Pearlies. One of the premier deepsea fishing tournaments took place in Coffs this weekend and it will be interesting to see the results. As I write this, Kris, Michael and John are out on the Ocean hopefully getting some good spearing in. I will have to console myself in the meantime, with training in the local municipal pool and playing U/W hockey.

31 October 2008

2008-10-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

This has been a good week by all accounts. I was at a congress over the previous weekend and at every break my colleague, Michael and I stood looking at the ocean settling down to diveable conditions. By Saturday afternoon, we tentatively looked at an early morning start on Sunday 26 October.

Sunday morning well before sunrise we arrived at the wave buoy and waited for a little light before slipping into the water. It was warm but the viz not nearly as good as we would have thought. The ever-present school of Yellowtail Kings surrounded us but the Dorado continued to elude. We headed back to Bullocky but the viz became considerably worse and a powerful N-S current also contributed to a short stay. We left with nothing to show for our effort.

Weather predictions for the coming week did not fill me with much optimism as far as diving was concerned. I was wrong. Come Wednesday 29th things took a turn for the better. One of my diving buddies Kris had spent the morning fishing while I was at work. The viz was an astounding 20m+. I was off on Wednesday afternoon and ready to rock and roll. Kris's little rubber-duck was hitched and we were on our way. Michael called to say his brother, John, was keen to take his new fast boat out. We quickly joined that option and launched the new boat from Arrawarra, just north of Woolgoolga. We headed out to the Middle Grounds but the viz was putrid.

John's boat flies and he thought it worth looking at several spots. We checked the Wash before heading out to the Coffs Harbour FAD. Unfortunately the viz was poor at these spots. Kris was adamant the viz had been super in the morning. We finally decided to stop off N of the Light (South Solitary). We jumped in just outside of the sanctuary zone to be enveloped in baitfish. It wasn't long before I lost a chance when a really big fish swam past. I saw it disappear before making a positive ID but it was a pelagic.

We persevered and I saw a reasonable King near the bottom in 19m. It came right up to me in the murky water and paid the price for its curiosity. I soon had another bigger one approach me in mid-water. They were loaded in the esky and I was back in the water.

Kris and John seemed very engrossed in the area they were diving. I started swimming across to them when a small school of Kings came up to me. I ducked down and slowly slipped through them looking for a good fish. They all seemed pretty much the same size and I soon had another in the esky. This was followed by an Amberjack from a massive school that surrounded me. I attempted to get back to Kris and John and took another King. While I was stringing the fish, a huge school surrounded me. I looked around for a really good fish and some big bruisers down deep caught my attention.

I was holding a fish in my left hand as I dived and the school seemed very interested in it, staying in close to me. I selected a really big tackle-buster, lined-up and squeezed the trigger. The spear went over the top and I dropped the fish I had been holding. Kris and John had returned to the boat and the sun was on its way to the horizon. I had enough fish anyway and called it quits. On the way back to the boat, I was entertained by a fast moving school of Mack Tuna (Kawakawa) hammering the tiny Whitebait.

I chatted to some divers the following day and one of them actually said his equipment is too valuable to lose on a big Yellowtail, so he passes up on shooting them. They all commented on the abundance of baitfish which is looking really good.

Conditions have deteriorated again and I will be pool-bound for the time being, playing underwater hockey while we impatiently drum our fingers in anticipation of an improvement.

20 October 2008

2008-10-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

Busy weekend by all accounts. Saturday was the NSW State U/W hockey Champs. Coffs Harbour hosted the event and our team fared well considering this was our first attempt at a State Champs. Coffs were runners-up in the B-League being pipped at the post by Sydney B. Melbourne comfortably took the A League.

Most of the Coffs Harbour competitors play U/W hockey to keep in shape for spearfishing. So just as soon as the conditions allow there are going to be some super-primed spearos out there.

Sunday looked like a good day although buoyweather indicated a dramatic change in conditions by midday. Kris, Aidin and I headed out on Brett's Tupperware boat. First time on a plastic boat for me. Very stable craft with loads of floatation. Handled very predictably but the sea conditions had changed earlier than expected.

We had a pounding ride out to the wave buoy and found a large school of Yellowtail milling about. All small. The viz was good 20m and the water warm. Some dolphins arrived and in spite of the lack of any other fish we enjoyed their antics. I think the Yellowtail much less so. Their school was somewhat thinned by the dolphins' activity by the time we left.

The ride back was worse than the ride out. Decided to stop just outside of Pig Island at the mouth of Coffs Harbour to explore Bullocky. This is a highpoint which comes to approx 8m from the surrounding 22m. Yellowtail Kingfish, Wahoo and Snapper are often taken here. The conditions were atrocious. The viz was really poor, inside of 5m, the surface had thick masses of tiny jellyfish. Thought there might be clearer water below but found an even dirtier silt layer at about 12m. Some fish were seen but nothing worth shooting. Lots of Moses Perch, Bream, Sawtail Surgeon and Kris even saw some Finger-mark Bream. Red Morwong all over the place. Probably would have taken 5 different species in South Africa but the emphasis here is on quality not quantity so nothing for me on Sunday. Nice to get out and dive again.

On another tack, thought I would try my hand at some Gyotaku (Japanese Fish Printing). First attempt was not that bad and I am deciding on what my next subject should be. I remember my dad showing me an etching from a knight's tomb and the technique of Gyotaku does share some similarities.

13 October 2008

2008-10-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

Eventually got the chance to dive in reasonable conditions. There was a small break in the weather yesterday and fortunately we had 3 hours to use to our best advantage. Michael took us to South Solitary Island and we pulled up on the NW side, to be greeted by showering baitfish and hundreds of predators on the feed. Thousands of birds filled the sky and lots of bait balls breaking the surface filled our ears with joy. It was obvious that different fish were involved. We could see the backs of small Tuna, probably Kawakawa (Mack Tuna) and Australian Salmon were also on the rampage.

The sky was overcast but the sea was almost mirror calm with little current flowing N-S. The sea was not warm or particularly clear. There were colder patches about where the viz was terrible. I went over the side but the activity had moved off. I had cleverly left my speargun at home again. Almost a habit. I saw some fish racing up to take some of the tiny sprats that were all around at the surface. Viz was maybe 8m in the really good areas. Kris came up from a dive and told me there was a Yellowtail below. I ducked down and glided into the gloom below. The thought of the recent Great White sighting off Boambee still a little troubling. In came a group of scads and some fusiliers. The inquisitive Sawtail Surgeons drifted around the periphery while I hung still just above the muck in about 15m of water.

I noticed the long shape of the fish coming from behind on my right side. I kept still, falling into the dirty water, before I made my way to intercept the Yellowtail's course. It turned to see what I was up to and I was able to put in a good shot through its left gill plate into the right. The spear and barb smashed the gills making it a short struggle to subdue the fish. It went approx 8/9kg. I thought a worthwhile reward for all the effort I have recently put in. One fish is all I can use at the moment so I decided to try some deeper diving and gliding.

Had a good preparation on the surface before starting the descent. For a while I glided down with my eyes closed, just enjoying the freedom of freediving. I opened my eyes to see a big head coming up at me. Took me a moment to realise it was a large Grey nurse giving me the once over but my bottom time was smashed and I headed back to the surface to try again. Another good prep and glided down. This time with open eyes making sure I was not going to be surprised again. I found a good spot on the reef and settled down in an effort to do a good breath-hold. There were lots of sea-urchins on my approach and I just wanted to check that the ones on my left were safely clear of me. I turned to see a set of massive gills next to my head. Suffice to say I shat myself. Headed back to the surface leaving the inquisitive Grey Nurse to her own devices.

7 October 2008

2008-10-06T16:05:00.000-07:00

It could almost be described as ridiculous. There are fish about. I know this because I keep reading about the rock & surf guys and the boaters picking up fish. As far as the spearos go, it has been slim pickings. Heard via the grapevine that the local shrimp trawlers are not even going out because their nets pick up so much muck that it becomes too expensive to drag the nets. The sea still has that ugly black appearance that in my limited experience equals lots of effort with little reward. Not too bad working hard while the conditions are poor.

I have been training really hard with the U/W hockey though. Spend 4 days a week practicing in the local pool. The State Champs are to be held in Coffs the weekend after next. Should be good fun. Our team is very rough around the edges. The guys have superb breath-holding ability but the rules rarely apply and full contact often ensues. The city softies are in for a rude awakening. Thought I would include some pictures of the beach at Korora. I am told when conditions are good, there are Jewfish, crays and abalone to be found against the headland from which the picture was taken. On the edge of the reef, one could encounter kingfish and mackerel move through the channel between the deep blinder and the small rocky island.

30 September 2008

2008-09-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

Started last week watching a patch of good weather, predicted approx 3 days ahead, on Buoyweather. Each day the good weather seemed to move ahead another day. NE blowing and mucking up the sea but by Friday the reasonable weather seemed to be stable. Saturday 27 September seemed to be a good day. Then on Friday the NE slacked off with a light S following and the ocean settled down nicely. We decided to head out early on Saturday before the morning consulting.

One of the problems with leaving early in the morning is that you don't see what is going on with the sea. You tend to work on what you saw yesterday and what the grapevine is broadcasting. On Friday the scuba guys had 20+ viz around the lighthouse at South Solitary. Our expectations were high because of the reports of Dorado at the wave buoy outside the harbour.

First stop saw us at the wave recording buoy. Kris elected to be the boat bitch because he overslept! I slipped over the side after seeing schools of small fish under the boat. The viz was not great, 8m at best. Depth under the buoy was in the vicinity of 60m. I drifted toward the buoy and dived. In a short space of time I noticed a large school of small fish heading my way. Initially thought they were Rainbow Runners but it turned out to be a Yellowtail Creche. Hundreds of these baby Kingfish milled around me. Minimum size is 65cm, so I just hung in the water hoping that I would see a reasonable one to grace the sushi menu for Saturday evening. Nothing. The water was really cold and the decision was made to move to the FAD.

For the Spearos in SA, the law in Australia is that your fishing permit money can only be used to benefit recreational fishers. So funds are provided for the placement of legal FADs for the use of recreational fishers only. Amazing what you can do when you don't have corrupt officials pilfering the funds.

Got to the area where the buoy is normally placed and it has not been returned since it was removed for maintenance! The water had that ugly black appearance too. Saw a commercial in the vicinity servicing his fish traps. These traps are set for extended periods of time and are marked with large surface buoys. Good spot for attracting open ocean pelagics. On inspection, we found that the traps had been freshly set, too soon to have pulled any fish.

By this time it was getting late and by that I mean normal people were waking up. We turned to port and opened the throttle. Within 3/4 of an hour the boat was pulled from the water and I was heading home for a quick shower before starting work. Another opportunity gone awry.

Sunday I was still smarting from Saturday's disappointment and elected to give the spearing a miss. This week I am watching proceedings for Wednesday and the weekend closely with the hope of getting into more settled conditions. In the meantime, still training 3x/week in the pool for U/W hockey. I firmly believe that by the time we get the really good conditions that I have seen here previously I will be super trained for the diving. I have heard that daylight saving is starting early this year. I think that after the first weekend in October our clocks are set forward by an hour. That means when I get back from work in the evening, there will still be enough light to go for a dive. How cool is that.

22 September 2008

2008-09-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

For those who do not have any idea of where Coffs Harbour is, it is approx 30 S on the E coast of Australia. For the guys in Natal that is approx the same line of latitude as Aliwal Shoal. Current off the coast is usually in a N-S direction (East Australia Current). I am still learning the effect of the various winds but at this stage a NE is bad news.

Saturday saw a relatively strong NE with white-horses and the sea was churned up terribly. Wind dropped off by the evening and I even managed to catch a Whiting off the beach on plastic. Fish was released because I already had some fresh salmon for sushi.

Woke late on Sunday and after a walk on the beach decided to go for a swim. The competition was called off and boats stayed at home. What a pity. The sea was flat and while the viz was poor close in, it looked better out deep. I heard of one boat finding Dorado and Kingfish off the wave bouy E of Coffs Harbour. My swim produced nothing. Saw several large fish which all turned out to be Blue Groper, a protected species. I am seriously considering acquiring a surf-ski to extend my range from the beach, which might give me sufficient range to get into the really clean water.

Drove from Korora to Woolgoolga and the Ocean looked superb this morning. Absolutely flat with a clear cloudless sky. Plan of action should be to get going early morning and try to get some fish off the wave bouy before work. Will see if that pans out.

19 September 2008: Friday

2008-09-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

Managed to get out on Wednesday. Long swim looking for clean water. Water looked clear from the headland at Korora and was very definitely clean much further out, but inshore it was milky. Swam approx 3km and although the viz was 2m at best, found lots of interesting reef. Water temp cold, approx 17C. Saw a few fish but they tended to be very skittish but when you are out hunting you learn quickly. Found several nice deep gutters and lay dead still in the bottom of one. I fired immediately I could make out the shape of the fish. A reasonable Bluebar Parrotfish for the supper table. I spent some time looking for crays and abalone but my spot had the worst viz possible, could not see beyond my elbow. Kept wondering when the lead actor in 'Jaws' was going to show up.

The light E wind is shifting from N to S and back again but the sea continues to look cleaner. Could see reef patches every time I drove from Coffs to Korora. Fortunately not on-call this weekend. I am really grateful because of the level of tick paralysis cases I am seeing at present. Going to be a busy day for the local vets.

Joined the local spearfishing club: Coffs Harbour Bluewater Freedivers. They are almost a bunch of renegades. I say this tongue-in-cheek because they are extremely environmentally aware. The Club only keeps records of good eating fish and no records of fish that are shot, just because they happen to be there, are kept. Sunday is the Club competition day and if the weather holds the guys should get some Yellowtail Kingfish. I certainly have designs on getting out. A little bird whispered that there might be Yellowfin Tuna and Striped Marlin about and I am very keen to get out and see. Also out deep I will be able to practice some 30+m dives to keep the system fresh & trained. Playing u/w hockey once a week and training in the pool 3x/week. I was fascinated to feel how much my hockey had improved. My training companion was a demon at the hockey on Wednesday evening after just a few days of training. Hope to be hot to trot by the time the really good spearfishing conditions arrive.

17 September

2008-09-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday looked good, sea was really clear. Took a walk on the beach and the reefs and rocks were clearly visible. Workload quite significant with tick paralysis cases and surgery, so no chance for a mid-afternoon dip. Today is a different story though. I have the afternoon off so a dive is definitely on the cards. Was up on the headland south of Korora this morning, bright and early for a walk, and the sea looks spectacular.

I am trying to remember the tips I had on my website for improving my spearfishing. I hope to eventually get them all out of the sticky mess I like to call my mind.

1. Use a reelgun.
2. Learn to use marker buoys.
3. Practice shooting accurately.
4. Get a GPS unit and practice with it.
5. Become proficient in the use of Sonar.
6. Keep notes.
7. Be quiet and unobstrusive when diving.
8. Watch your body language.
9. Learn the importance of gliding.
10. Keep streamlined to be more efficient.
11. Learn to be interested in the bottom and don't concentrate on your breath-hold.
12. Dive straight down, avoid angles.
13. Don't crane your head up, keep your chin down and comfortable.
14. Arrange the fit and position of your gear for optimum efficiency.
15. Look for bait and fish schools.

15 September 2008

2008-09-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

Agreed to go and train at the local public pool this am. The sea looked great as I came over from Korora to Coffs on the Pacific Hghwy. Flat and little wind. In retrospect might have been a better idea to head out for a shore-dive instead of training in the pool. Spent some time finning lengths with various breath-hold routines as well as doing negative statics at the bottom of the pool. Sea still looked great on the way back and I felt positive about getting in at lunch time.

The sting in the tail was that the recent rainy weather followed by the fantastic sunny clear days brought out every tick in the area. I was quite literally in my wetsuit ready to hit the water when the phone rang and I had to head out to an emergency: tick paralysis case. Bummer! I am wondering if I am ever going to get in for a dive.

Conditions seem very iffy for the next few days. Will have to wait and see what happens.

14 September 2008

2008-09-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

I just cannot believe it. The sea looked fantastic on my way to work yesterday but by the time I headed down to the beach it was crap. Unfortunately the conditions do not look good for the next couple of days. Guess I am just going to have to be patient and tough it out. Perhaps go and train at the pool.

5 basic things to look at now that I am down here:

1. Check my gear thoroughly.
2. Take it for a test swim and make sure everything is comfortable.
3. Keep up with the training. Now I am at sea-level, I don't have the benefit afforded by having lived at altitude.
4. Work on establishing my spearfishing network DownUnder.
5. Learn the new fish species.

13 September 2008

2008-09-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

Did not get out to walk on the beach this morning but got a good look at the ocean on my way to work. The beginning of the week was shoddy with a S blowing and churning up the sea. Over the past 2 days there has been a light NE and conditions seem to have really improved. Unfortunately all my contacts seem to be out at sea and I can't say I blame them because today looks to be a great day to get wet.

Sea is flat, viz looks good, clear hot sunny day, things look ideal. I am certainly going to give it a whirl this afternoon now that I have all my normal spearo gear from South Africa. Kris just got onto me to tell me conditions are crap. NE blowing, white-caps, viz poor, that out of Coffs Harbour.

Making a New Start

2008-09-11T04:29:00.000-07:00

My family and I flew out of South Africa on 11 Aug 2008 to make a fresh start in Australia. It was definitely not an easy decision to make. Having said that, I have left Johannesburg and now live in a small coastal town called Coffs Harbour in New South Wales only 200m from the Ocean. What an opportunity.

For anyone who was following my posts on www.squidoo.com/Underwater_Hunting, a glitch resulted in the site being erased. I am working on putting it all back together but including some new information.

My first boat dive was really poor. I did not even see any fish worth shooting at. The two guys diving with me did get some crays and perlemoen(abalone). In this neck of the woods perlemoen may still be taken. Remember when we could take perlemoen in good old South Africa?

The second boat dive was a little better. Still functioning like a South African diver i.e. shoot first ask questions later, I shot a good Silver Drummer, looks something like a Chub. The fish would have easily been a max weigher but around here the guys are spoiled for choice so only the choicest fish are targeted. The guys had a good laugh at my inexperience but the learning has started.

Since I am a very short distance from the beach, I take a walk every morning to check out the conditions. As soon as the sea cleared I did a quick swim to look for crays and was rewarded with a cray and a perlie. Not bad. Bag limit here is very meagre. Only allowed to take 2 crays and 2 perlies.

GPS Co-ords for Cape Vidal

2008-01-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

I would appreciate any help with regard to obtaining co-ords for Vidal. If you do not have any co-ords but do have experience or advice for Vidal, I would appreciate that too.

Oppose the Proposed Legislation

2007-12-11T01:46:00.000-08:00

Please look at the proposed ban on diving in an attempt to curb Abalone/Perlemoen poaching. This is like banning driving to prevent speeding.

Visit www.spearfishing.co.za/news/proposed-ban-on-diving.pdf to read a copy of this ludicrous piece of legislation. Opposition must be made before 15 January 2008.

Mourning the loss of a Spearfishing Friend

2007-11-30T00:29:00.000-08:00

It was with great sadness that I learnt of the untimely death of a good Spearfishing buddy Helgaard Hartman on 28 November 2007. I was fortunate to meet him at the Nationals held at Port Elizabeth 2006 and we became firm friends. He lived a long way from the rest of the team but we made every effort to get together for Spearfishing as often as we could. This year we were lucky enough to have spent some time diving at Sedgefield before the Nationals and again during the Nationals. Our last trip together was to hunt Yellowfin Tuna off Cape Point and then diving for crayfish the following day.

My fondest memory of him will be his laugh as we sat around a fire at his home in Malmesbury enjoying fresh tuna steaks and olives he and his wife had prepared at home. His passing has left an enormous void in our midsts.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family at this immensely sad time.

Do the rules only apply to some of us?

2007-11-12T12:50:00.000-08:00

I have just returned from a great weekend of spearfishing off Scottburgh. I would like to thank the dive skippers who launch from the Umkomaas river for their assistance and help with regard to the launch. I do have a gripe though. All boats are required to conform with the safety regulations laid down by SADSAA. What regulations govern launch facilities? The amount of money I have paid to an entity called the Umkomaas Skiboat Club is probably equivalent to the cost of a really good VHF or 29MEG radio. What responsibilities does a launch site have when you pay and fill in the official launch book? Is this just a front for collecting money from the skippers for using their river to launch out of?

This has bothered me for some time now. It would probably never have occurred to me unless I had not been alerted to it during a previous trip. While preparing the boat for the launch, I was approached by the so-called launch official with the SADSAA launch book and told that I needed to pay to launch. All official and I was happy to comply. I am a law-abiding person after all and I accepted that everything was kosher. When I returned later that afternoon, the site was closed and said official gone. Who knows what could have happened during the day. The following morning when preparing to launch again, said official approached again. I refused to pay and suggested he contact some-one to come down to the beach to talk to me. He seemed confused that I was demanding that he be present when I returned from sea to complete the book on my return. He could not understand that by collecting money from me and making it official, he carried a responsibility toward me. To this day, no-one has ever contacted me with regard to this.

This weekend, I inquired whether a radio was available at the launch site. I was told that a cellphone could be contacted. Unacceptable. I am required to have an operational radio, the launch site in collecting money should have the same at least. I challenge anyone from the Umkomaas Skiboat Club to comment on my rantings. Is Umkomaas just using this as a way of gleaning funds out of ignorant skippers? I intend contacting SADSAA with respect to this to get some feedback.

Frustration

2007-10-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

Is that a look of utter frustration or what? The weather off the Natal Coast just does not seem to be giving Spearos any opportunities. I was chatting to one of my dive buddies down on the far South Coast and the conditions are foul. So spending the last weekend going through and packing my gear with every good intention of diving this coming weekend has proved an utter waste. I suppose I will have to check the boat and possibly look at fitting the new Humminbird Side Imaging Fishfinder. That will at least mean the weekend will not be wasted.

What do you do when you are going diving? Do you have a list that you work from? I am paying more attention to lists to avoid the inevitable disappointment and frustration when unpacking and finding something missing. I use a list for all the gear on my boat and a list for my spearfishing gear. The next is to get a list together for preparing fish i.e. sharp knives, olive oil and so on. At this point the thought of fresh fish seems a long way off.

Ready to go Spearfishing

2007-10-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

I have not been into the ocean since competing at the Sodwana Gamefish Challenge and am starting to experience withdrawal symptoms. I need a frequent exposure to seawater otherwise I become ratty and unpleasant.

The only consolation and it is a small consolation, is that the weather has been really unpleasant on the Natal coast recently. I have visited several sites and blogs lamenting the poor conditions. I certainly am looking forward to getting back into the ocean. Looks like the Natal Trials are going ahead today at the Bluff. The results are going to be quite interesting. I know of some Spearo's who have been putting in serious training for these trials.

My spearfishing network includes one of the divers selected to trial for the South African Team and I am keen to get out with him in the trial area and get in some deep diving.

If you are a new Spearo just starting out or an experienced Spearo looking to sharpen up consider contacting Gletwyn Rubidge. I have been finding his mentoring program very interesting and helpful. The results still need to be determined in the sea. On the subject of Spearfishing sites, look at my site on www.squidoo.com/Underwater_Hunting/.