Chapter 8
59. Essential Skills. “Dive to your limits”.
This is a simple tip that we have heard from many experienced spearos but it’s bloody spot-on advice. Often if guys are diving right on the edge of their depth limits, they will follow much stricter buddy protocols and only dive like this in clear, comfortable water and conditions. In my own crew, when we are pushing our depth comforts, we will dive in threes. Two up and one down. This way there are two guys immediately available in the event of a blackout and it also helps everyone to stick to the double surface time interval.
60. Essential Skills. Dive-Day Tip.
Focus, make small improvements. Develop your awareness in the moment and reflect on each dive as you breathe up. For example, you might be lifting your head as you descend in your eagerness to see what’s around before you reach the bottom. To improve that, next time you rest on the surface watching your buddy complete their dive, pre-plan mentally what you want to do on the next dive. Think about descending without lifting your head. This takes discipline initially, but if you stick to it you will be more relaxed on the bottom and fish will be a lot less flighty.
Anvar Mufazalov, a freediving instructor in Cyprus, has a great video series on YouTube called Deep Spearfishing Encyclopaedia. He talks all about focus and spearfishing hunting technique in his videos. This learning habit takes time and self-discipline to develop but I can guarantee that you will quickly become a much better spearo and diver if you develop this mindset. If your buddy is aware of what you are focusing on they can also provide you with their opinion and advice. #a good mentor can help you develop even faster!
61. Essential Skills. First aid and advanced resuscitation.
It goes without saying that spearfishing can be dangerous. Stings, bites, blackouts, boat strikes – the list goes on. It’s important to know what to do to save your mates when the shit hits the fan. There are plenty of good first aid trainers around and some that are diver orientated. Get googling or check in with your local club for more information. Last year the Australian Underwater Federation Queensland subsidized a First Aid and Radio Operators course for members so we went and got re-certified for $100.
One of the biggest and probably most obvious takeaways was: “Always keep a good well-stocked first aid kit on hand.”
62. Essential Skills. Weather and conditions, final checks.
A final check to make sure the weather is good should be done before leaving home. It’s a waste of your fuel and time if the weather has changed significantly. Some of the locations I like to shore dive are 90 minutes’ drive and in the past I have arrived to brown muck and/or large swell. Because I have driven 90 minutes, I have often persevered in ridiculous conditions just because I had shown up. When you are a “keen as mustard noob” often this can lead to diving in dangerous conditions. The sport is addictive but keep your wits about you when deciding whether to dive or not. Use 2 different forecasting services and monitor their accuracy over time. Two of our services use the same data but often come to different predictions about the weather. This way you can just go with the more conservative forecast (or at least split the difference in the two!).
63. Essential Skills. Float line awareness.
Before and during your dive make sure you’re not going to become entangled in your rig line because this will cause tear-offs and frustration and even worse you can be dragged down by a large fish.
I have witnessed a mate’s rig line get looped around his snorkel with a 20kg (45lb) plus fish running for the hills and the resulting friction as it bound on the snorkel was an empty spear and no fish. Returning to the surface at the end of a breath hold and shooting a large fish is extra care time. Yes, hopefully you have a dive knife in easy reach. However, big fish move very quickly and by the time you cut the rope it might be too late.
Maintain awareness of your float line at all times, make it a focus and reduce the learning time. Float lines are still safer than reel guns for most forms of spearfishing starting out. If guys are running gun reels they should back it up by also including a belt reel to clip off to in the event of being spooled.
64. Essential Skills. Fighting Fish.
Softly does it. Naturally when something pulls hard you often instinctively want to pull hard in return. Well with many species that’s a sure fire way to lose fish. Some species like mackerel and wahoo are clean fighters that prefer open water runs rather than looking for holes and caves to dive into so there’s no need to muscle them back to the boat. However, dogtooth tuna, yellowtail and grouper are the opposite and if they make it to structure you might lose all your gear.
So with clean fighters, let them run and tire out so you don’t risk pulling the spear out. But for the dirtier quarry, shot placement in a tough area is crucial so you can put the brakes on them when possible and steer them into favourable spots. With dogtooth this means big floats and short enough float lines that they don’t bury you. With yellowtail kingfish, a damaging shot and a good battle from the surface will generally do the trick. When you begin to target these species ask the more experienced guys how they do it.
65. Essential Skills. Local rules and regulations.
Spearos are increasingly coming under fire from line fisherman and greenies for apparently doing the wrong thing. This is partly due to a small minority of idiots doing the wrong thing. In this day and age it has never been more important to be seen to be doing the right thing. Your local fisheries authority should be able to help with this. Here is a short list of rules to be mindful of in your local area to ensure we can all keep enjoying the sport into the future:
66. Essential Skills. Fish Identification skills.
Unlike fishing, spearfishing isn’t suited to catch and release. Once you pull that trigger and put seven and a half millimetres of spring steel through a fish you can’t really set him free to live out his days. It’s final and that’s why your fish identification skills are so important. Knowing what species are in your local area and what they look like are the first steps in targeting your prey. Knowledge of fish species ensures you won’t spear anything undesirable or worse, poisonous. It will also help you to gain a knowledge of the species you want to be targeting. Aaron Chasse, in a recent Noob Spearo Podcast interview, told a story about when he started spearfishing and wanted to have epic identification skills. What he did was to create his own book that catalogued all of the common species located in his area along with photos of each species taken underwater. He said this was a huge help in his early days.
67. Essential Skills. Have And Be a Good Dive buddy (trustworthy).
Love him or hate him you’re going to need this guy and he might just save your life one day. Your dive buddy is the guy that you meet on the rocks on those cold winter mornings after he’s already called five times making sure you’re out of bed. He takes photos of you holding up your catch and generally helps to keep the stoke. More importantly, he’s the guy on the surface that watches you on every dive making sure you don’t blackout and drown. A good buddy should also know the signs of blackout and be drilled in rescue techniques.
68. Essential Skills. Buddy Benefits. Second Shot.
A good buddy can check your shot placement, especially if you don’t know exactly where your shot has landed. When you make it back to the surface after the shot, signal your buddy if you have any doubts about the shot and they can head down for a look.
If the fish requires a second shot, be patient with it. When sighting on the fish treat the shot as if it was in open water and not tethered. If the shot looks good, however, and it’s not going to tear out – DO NOT take a second shot as the ensuing tangle should be avoided if possible. If in doubt, take the shot. If it’s your fish, don’t be proud and risk the fish, call for a second shot.
69. Buddy Benefits Cont:
70. Caring For Your Catch.
Ike Jime is a method of humanely killing fish that originated in Japan. It is the method by which a spike is inserted into the brain of the fish usually behind and above the eye causing instant death. The fish’s fins will flare and then relax which lets you know that you’ve hit the spot. Not only is Ike Jime humane but it greatly improves the eating quality of the fish as well. Instantly killing the fish stops reflex action like kicking and thrashing which prevents the build-up of lactic acid that sours the flavour of the fish. In addition, the blood in the flesh retracts to the gut cavity producing a better coloured fillet and improved taste. (learn more at www.ikejime.com)
71. Caring For Your Catch.
If you are on an extended dive trip (longer than one day), leave your fish un-gutted. According to former guest on the show, Daniel Mann, this can help to preserve the condition of the flesh.
72. Caring For Your Catch. Ice and Water Slurry.
Get your fish in ice straight away. Putting them straight into the ice will make for better quality on the plate.
73. Caring For Your Catch. Filleting Fish.
Sharp knives and lots of practice will eventually get you filleting well. YouTube tutorials can be very helpful when you are starting out [Noob Spearo has one up]. Also, if the whole crew is into the filleting gig, at the end of a trip you can make short work of the filleting by dividing the tasks up. One can knock the fillets off, one can skin and portion, another can label and bag. Labelling fish is a great idea. Recently Turbo had a bad bout of ciguatera poisoning Due to the multiple species shot, he had difficulty isolating exactly which species had caused the symptoms.
74. Diving Conditions.
“… if you’re someone new just starting out, you (should) probably try and just go out when the ocean is perfect, flat calm seas, the best visibility you can find, and try not to really push your boundaries there, you want to try and start off in the easiest conditions you can find” (Doug Peterson, Author of ‘Spearfishing, How to get Started.)
Making improvements to your diving behaviour is a gradual process. Think, plan, and act according to the conditions you are diving in.
*Tip: If you are just starting, try and head out for your first few dives in the best possible conditions. If you are a bit more advanced, be smart about when and where you try to make improvements and challenge yourself.
75. Boat Trips. Keep It Simple – especially on your first boat trips.
“…the simpler your setup, the more people are going to want to take you, because if you turn up on someone’s boat and you’ve got all the bells and whistles and a giant bag, it’s space, it’s not going to get used, so you just want to have simple gun, simple fins. Everything nice, easy, gear that doesn’t break down on you all the time, and you’ll get a lot more fish and a lot more boat rides.” (Trevor Ketchion)
*Tip: When heading out on boat trips, your spearfishing gear should fit in one bag or plastic crate. Simplify it as much as possible, this will minimize the space you take up on the boat and you won’t annoy the skipper! (I did this one starting out….sheepish look)