A Spearfishermans Perspective

Well there are a fair few of us that that have a love for the ocean and a passion for breathe hold diving. and since very few divers own a boat due to whatever reason it is often hard to find a legal spot to spear on the coast, so the seaway is the go.

Myself and two other friends of mine are heavily into diving there, its just the relaxed feeling of free diving while holding ur breathe, totally focused on going deeper and staying down longer while of course, stalking target species.

Spearing buddies and I will often dwell at one anothers house, watching old spearing movies over and over again while waiting and constantly checking and rechecking weather forecasts as we have several factors that come up against us at the seaway:

1. Tide - usually the last 2.5 hrs of the run in tide and the first 1.5 of the run out. this is when visabilty is greatest.
2. Swell - gets to surgy and is harder to hunt, hold your breath and decreases visabilty.
3. Wind - creates surface chop that refracts of the wall, increasing it 2 fold.
4. Cloud cover - although not vital, decreases visabitly.
5. NE winds - send all the clear water out to the shelf, and brings the dirty, cold water to the coast.
6. Crowds - the seaway can often become a hussle for a viable spot along the wall, and with riglines from other divers, a tangle can occur if a big fish is shot.
7. Fisheries - making sure that no spearfisher goes a CM over the invisible line between illegal and legal spearing.

Once conditions look favourable, we r off, dodging work and other commitments for the love of the underwater world, we put on all of our gear, including our camo wetsuits and jump in at the beach.

once we r out there, we dive randomly up and down for what seems 5mins but in reality is up to 5 hrs. some days are better than others, pending on fish life: between us we have managed to spear.

kingfish blue bar parrotfish bream flaties surgeonfish mangrove jack blubberlip bream crayfish spangled emporer giant trevalies big eye trevalies indian mirror fish Jewfish blackfish tuskfish cod. plus more fish than i can name at the moment. lol.

On occasions we see eagle rays and turtles crusing by without a care in the world, this is all seen on a breathe that usually lasts not to much more than 1.5 mins.

Us spearos can see how the public eye can cast down on us, thinking that we slaughter every fish we see in sight. when in reality the fish they buy from commercial trawalers kill tenfold the amount the fish we even see. also the harmless recreational fisherman kills far more fish than most will know with the use of stainless steel hooks accompanied by the boulders of the bottom, which provide many easy break off points for hard fighting species, which inturn leaves the fish to die, often snagged up on some cunjevoi, which i have personally had to remove fish from while spearfishing. and when you talk to a person of the general public that says "each and every fish that gets off will die" this is not true, as i have seen countless fish with scars from where the spear has torn out.

I admit there are spearos out there that do not follow the rules of bag limits nor areas of spear banning, and that is where I am greatful of the fisheries for their continuous monitoring and awareness, and when the situation of someone "spearing on the inside" we r very proud to inform (if not, inforce) them of their illegal spearing.

thank you for your time and effort in saving our spit.

Bryson.