Spearfishing with scuba

[Vicksburg Diver]

Or perhaps what you are witnessing is an experienced spearo with excellent stalking skills.

Question for Vicksburg Diver. Do you eat fish?

Reply to OneSpeed: Yes I eat fish. And you breathe my air.

 

[Wayward Son]

Yeah, a lot of the fish I shoot on scuba I do consider sporting. Aj's like to beat the snot out of you. I like to eat barracuda, but I don't do so well at stoning them. So that usually goes like this:

1) Get close & set up the shot
2) Shoot it through the head
3) Then it gets pretty sporty for a bit while I subdue the toothy critter, LOL

Some fish are pretty dumb, easy to shoot. But that's true for both scuba and free diving. Some fish seem to be so spooky that it appears unlikely that you would ever get one on scuba. White sea bass are reported as busting out just due to a free diver's ears squeaking when he equalizes, no way a noisy bubble blower is getting a shot at one. Does that make shooting them while free diving unsporting?

Bottom line is that I dive & hunt & spear for one person: Me.

When I hunt with black power, I choose the gun, the load, everything. I don't let some guy choose for me.

When I choose my dive gear, I choose what suits me. I don't care if it hairlips every other PADI diver, freaks out a DIR diver or what. I care about how what I do meets my likes & needs.

When I spearfish, I hunt for me. I really don't care if you or anyone else thinks it's sporting or not. I hunt on scuba when it suits me & I hunt while snorkeling when it suits me.

There are too many people working too hard to put an end to ALL of it for me to turn cannibal & eat my own over a matter of equipment choices.

If you don't want to hunt on scuba, don't. If you don't want to dive with a guy who hunts on scuba, don't.

It really isn't rocket science.

 

[dogblues64]

Several of you, in your haste to brand me as some "tree hugger", "Nemo Hugger", "Enviromental Whacko" obviously misread my first post. I am not against spearfishing. In fact, in a rebutal to one of you, I even said I had spearfished using scuba. My point was, and is, what do you think of the "sporting issue" to spearfish with scuba compared to free diving? Personally, ( and I said this earlier ) I no longer spearfish with scuba.

I did not intend for this to turn into some asault on my "beliefs" ( or yours) nor some treatsie on fishing............just a simple question. I appreciate the interest and some of the replies. Some of you need to get a grip though.

Well, buy stating that you no longer spearfished with scuba.. you implied that you have a problem with it. Now, if we can get that far.. then you might start to see why you received the responses that you did!

Let's be honest, your under tones are anti-spearfishing-scuba.. no doubt! So don't act like you are so surprised when someone calls you out on your lack of knowledge in regard to Ocean Life Conservation! Commercial Fishing is where you need to be beating your drum right now, not with spearos!

Personally, I totally agree with some other postings... in that you kill what you are willing to eat, and leave it alone if not! Whether it be hunting, fishing, or neck wringing...

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Should spearfishing be outlawed while wearing scuba?

Here in Hawaii there is only tradition, not laws.

It may be best to actually know something about the laws as well as the tradition.

I went to the page you linked, and I have been to that page before. My statement was in answer to the main Q in the OP, quoted above. As far as I can see from following links on the DAR page, there is no law against spearfishing on scuba in Hawaii. That is what I meant when I said there is "not laws." If I am wrong and there are laws against spearfishing on scuba in Hawaii please give us a direct link to that law?

The tradition I was speaking of is again with respect to the Op, in that I was under the impression from my 15 years living on three Islands that spearfishing is predominantly done by freedivers here. I have guided tourist divers full time for the last 7 years (at least 4000 dives) and while I have seen the occasional freedive spearfishing done at the same site I was scuba diving, I have only seen it rarely at the popular tourist snorkel and dive sites.

Since the optimum time to take tourists diving is the morning, and many spearfishers may hunt after work, there may be slightly more spearing at popular tourist sites, but not when the vast majority of tourists are there as far as I have seen. Spearos is a term I thought referred to scuba divers who spearfish. I have no interest to lurk all the threads of SpearBoard to see if there are scuba spearos posting there. If there are threads documenting the numerous scuba spearos who are welcome and active members of the Hawaii spearfishing community please link them for us.

I spent nearly all of '06 & '07 diving in the South Maui waters on and around Ulua Reef; at least 2 dives per day 5 days a week. I doubt I saw an Ulua more than 5 times, even with hundreds of scooter dives up to a half mile off shore. I could be wrong but what was Ulua Reef named for if not the Ulua fish? Are you saying that the commercial fishing fleets that are not allowed to operate in that area are responsible for the fact that there are no Ulua at Ulua Reef? Or perhaps it was the pole fishers who caught them all from Ulua Beach?

My first dive guide/instructor job was on the North Shore of Oahu just as Pupukea Marine Conservation District was created. For the first few years of protection there was not much recovery to witness, and coincidentally there was not much enforcement going on. Now that enforcement is being taken more seriously, I here there is much more marine life in Shark's Cove. The commercial fishing fleets are much closer to those waters, and they have only been regulated in deep water species that do not make Shark's Cove their home. Are you saying that the recreational spear, line and shore net fishers in that area were the great conservationists that kept the ecosystem so lively that it ended up in a protected state?

In the Florida Keys, I hear the Jewfish (excuse me - goliath grouper) is making a comeback due to extensive protection. From my perspective it is not clear but maybe you will tell me it was the commercial fishing fleets, or even the line fishers who seriously depleted their numbers and not for the most part the scuba spearos? I am not saying there are not conservationists who spear, but saying spearos, or pole fishers, or elk hunters, are the only true conservationists is like saying cigarette smokers are the only ones concerned about all the butts on the beach.

The points I bring up are not the only factors. Urban run off has a large influence that is hard to quantify. It is not rocket science though; as all man's negative impacts increase due to our overdevelopment and over use, it is rarely the hunters who start the move to protect the dwindeling prey. Only after the numbers of grouper significantly rose outside the protected areas did the vast majority of Keys fishers start jumping on the protection bandwagon. How again do you define environmentalist?

 

[dogblues64]

In the Florida Keys, I hear the Jewfish (excuse me - goliath grouper) is making a comeback due to extensive protection. From my perspective it is not clear but maybe you will tell me it was the commercial fishing fleets, or even the line fishers who seriously depleted their numbers and not for the most part the scuba spearos? I am not saying there are not conservationists who spear, but saying spearos, or pole fishers, or elk hunters, are the only true conservationists is like saying cigarette smokers are the only ones concerned about all the butts on the beach.

It is very obvious you don't know anymore than what you have read somewhere about The Keys! The Jewfish are so plentiful on the wrecks you can't get a fish up out of the water. There are 100's of these beasts around the wrecks and Charter Boats are demanding that the protection be lifted to some degree!

There isn't that many Spearos here now that use scuba in The Keys to take credit for the 16 year protection on the Jewfish. Just think about it, how popular was scuba 16+ years ago! The Reef and Wrecks are 6+ miles out, so the Freedivers aren't going to swim out there and spear them.. LMAO!

If you knew what you were talkin about, and knew The Keys 16+ years ago, then you would also know what type of fishing was prevalent, the small Charter Commercial Fishing boats.. Yep! Can you see a spearo pulling up a 4 -8 hundred pound Jewfish? LMAO!

Stick to what you know man.. "It Is What It IS"..!!

 

[Wayward Son]

Jewfish have been federally protected for 17 or 18 years now. Yes, they've made a huge comeback. Yes, they were taken by spearos, both on scuba & free divers, spearing was hardly the only means of take.

However, to blame their past reduction on spearing is at best an incomplete picture. If spearing was the demon, they would simply have made it illegal to spear them. Instead, they made it illegal to take them by any means, spear, net, hook & line, irrelevant. You can't take one.

Personally I think they've rebounded more than sufficiently to allow controlled harvest. But I'm not the one in position to make such decisions, LOL

 

[dogblues64]

I love it when someone that doesn't live here in The Keys tries to glorify themselves by knowing all the local information that you would have to live here, or have lived here to know! 16, 17, or 18 years ago... a spearo wouldn't want a Jewfish, Conch and Turtle were the delicacy and both were legal to hunt. Conch were plentiful just off the beach and Turtle could be had in any local restaurant! Why would Freedivers or Scuba Divers go to so much trouble to spear a Jewfish.. Hogfish still today are the best eatin and were back then.. they are not protected from spearos.. in fact, that's the only way to hunt Hogfish today!

But, you guys tell me how it is.. LMAO!

 

[Wayward Son]

can't speak for the keys, but you just might want to ask Ray Odor about shooting them way back when they were making their own scuba gear. There's movie footage to prove it.

 

[Wayward Son]

go to:

Index of /videos

and watch rayodorinterview.wmv

That's footage from 1953.

 

[Wayward Son]

And you can PM Ray directly on Spearboard Spearfishing Community - Powered by vBulletin if you'd like ta ask him anything.