16 March 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.