SPEARFISHING For My First Time In Australia's North West!
- last year
This day had been long awaited for me, and it was everything that I'd always dreamed of. Some people will say "big whoop, you're making a big deal out of nothing, just get in and shoot a fish" but that's not how I operate and there's reasons why.
I'm a big believer in first times making or breaking someones experiences and outlook on something. It often comes back to when I hear people say that they don't like eating fish, and I simply ask, "well, what type of fish have you had?" and they never know, because someone fed them sardines once and that was enough to turn them off and to never try again.
I bring that same thought process forward to my interests, and in this instance, spearfishing. I didn't want to half-ass my first time in the water, I bought the right equipment, I studied and observed, I made sure it was something I really wanted to do, and I went with someone that I can comfortably trust my life with, should things turn sour.
So about our day and how it unfolded!
Things got off to a bumpy start, as daylight revealed itself during the early morning commute to launch the boat, we were faced with overcast skies and rainfall. Without letting that phase us, we eventually dropped the boat into the water, only to find out both batteries were flat and the boat wouldn't start, so out it came back onto land.
Fortunately I have a spare battery and box in my 4wd that we were able to piggy-back onto the boat batteries and run with jumper cables for the entire morning, not ideal, but it worked!
Once we had arrived at our first mark, we had a quick look around in about 5 meters of water, with not much to show, so we moved onto the next one.
Queue the part of the episode were I slide off the boat and into the water, only to be caught hanging by my brand new $400+ dive-suit on my SECOND entry, ouch! I didn't let it get me down, and so now in about 8-9 meters of water, it was time for me to spear a fish.
Cavan was doing most of the hard work scouting ledges and finding fish for the both us, I just had to focus on getting down and spearing one correctly.
My first dive I was unfortunately a little hesitant on the first Coral Trout and hit it towards the tail end of the body, where it somehow came off the spear once it went under a nearby ledge.
My next dive had me onto a better trout, where I secured a better shot, only this time my spear became lodged under the reef with the fish, so I had to swim up to the surface without it. This was an option all along for safety, as Cavan said it's easier for him to go down and get it, than to risk me staying under water for too long trying to pull it out, but yes for anyone curious, I will be looking into float-lines and reels, moving forward.
In the Pilbara of Western Australia, we are only allowed to catch one Coral Trout per licensed fisher, per day. So it was onto the next best thing for me, and an equally tasty fish; Black Spot Tusk Fish, or more commonly referred to as Blue-bone. Down I went again
I'm a big believer in first times making or breaking someones experiences and outlook on something. It often comes back to when I hear people say that they don't like eating fish, and I simply ask, "well, what type of fish have you had?" and they never know, because someone fed them sardines once and that was enough to turn them off and to never try again.
I bring that same thought process forward to my interests, and in this instance, spearfishing. I didn't want to half-ass my first time in the water, I bought the right equipment, I studied and observed, I made sure it was something I really wanted to do, and I went with someone that I can comfortably trust my life with, should things turn sour.
So about our day and how it unfolded!
Things got off to a bumpy start, as daylight revealed itself during the early morning commute to launch the boat, we were faced with overcast skies and rainfall. Without letting that phase us, we eventually dropped the boat into the water, only to find out both batteries were flat and the boat wouldn't start, so out it came back onto land.
Fortunately I have a spare battery and box in my 4wd that we were able to piggy-back onto the boat batteries and run with jumper cables for the entire morning, not ideal, but it worked!
Once we had arrived at our first mark, we had a quick look around in about 5 meters of water, with not much to show, so we moved onto the next one.
Queue the part of the episode were I slide off the boat and into the water, only to be caught hanging by my brand new $400+ dive-suit on my SECOND entry, ouch! I didn't let it get me down, and so now in about 8-9 meters of water, it was time for me to spear a fish.
Cavan was doing most of the hard work scouting ledges and finding fish for the both us, I just had to focus on getting down and spearing one correctly.
My first dive I was unfortunately a little hesitant on the first Coral Trout and hit it towards the tail end of the body, where it somehow came off the spear once it went under a nearby ledge.
My next dive had me onto a better trout, where I secured a better shot, only this time my spear became lodged under the reef with the fish, so I had to swim up to the surface without it. This was an option all along for safety, as Cavan said it's easier for him to go down and get it, than to risk me staying under water for too long trying to pull it out, but yes for anyone curious, I will be looking into float-lines and reels, moving forward.
In the Pilbara of Western Australia, we are only allowed to catch one Coral Trout per licensed fisher, per day. So it was onto the next best thing for me, and an equally tasty fish; Black Spot Tusk Fish, or more commonly referred to as Blue-bone. Down I went again