Underwater Hunting?

[Madder_Than_Hell]

Everyone I dive with here in Florida spearfishes. It is a great way to get some food on the table. When you can't get them with a rod it's usually a gaurantee to get them with a gun.
I was lucky enough to start out spearfishing with some veterans of the sport. I found that sitting back and listening to what they had to say helped me the most.

SSI offers a spearfishing specialty course. They instructor that tought it to me happens to be the guy I go spearfishing with. Most of the time we could take out limit, but we always LIMIT OUR TAKE. We always only take what we can eat!

As far as rebreathers here in Florida, they are a no no.

Probably the hardest part of spearfishing is getting the good GPS numbers, and don't chase the fish! They can always out swim you. Just relax, breath slowly and make a head shot.

 

[Madder_Than_Hell]

Just a few pics of my last dive.

 

[devjr]

Duca, I'm curious to know how you are doing with the spearfishing. Much of spearfishing knowledge is local. That is what makes it somewhat difficult to advise someone in another area. For example, in DeepSea's land there is a fish called the White Sea Bass(cynosion nobilus). It belongs to the drum family which are widely distributed. However, the only fish here, on the east coast, which acts very similar to the Pacific White is the elusive Grey Sea trout(cynosion regalis), a close relative, both genetically and in physical beauty. Very few divers have ever seen a trout, let alone speared one. Besides myself, the only other person I know who has speared them here in VA is a friend from San Diego, not a coincidence.

Like the White, they are extremely afraid of bubbles, the sight and especially sound of which will cause them to explode. They are also agitated and will flee in response to any hand movement or even a direct stare. Waving a speargun is waving bye, bye.

However, in similar fashion, these fishes are sometimes less afraid when they travel in schools or hanging near the bottom; which brings me to mention that the Trout spends more time on the bottom than the White, the only difference in behavior. Where a solitary, large fish traveling through kelp or rocks may be hard to approach, a school traveling in midwater will often tolerate a close stalk from above as long as there are no bubbles or hand movement. Changing positions will spook them. Where some fish can be chased down for a one second window to shoot, the White/Trout cannot be chased. You know you are running out of time when the school changes direction or breaks formation. If a single fish starts to move off at an angle you must be in a position to shoot without swinging the barrel or paddling with a hand.

They have soft flesh and fight like hxxx which means they must be shot near the head. They can only be speared by freediving. When hit, because of their speed and power, and tendency to pull out, line must almost always be released from the reel. The best chance the spearo has is to be submerged when the fish is sighted. A surface dive on a fish is iffy and must be near totally silent and smooth. Even the bubbles from a snorkel will blow a day's hunting, the mouthpiece must be spit out. One strange thing, a diver who is "hanging" in the kelp can attract a White by "grunting", but only while remaining very still(I am not making this up). Something not well known perhaps, both races are night feeders and can be hunted successfully in shallow water which rises suddenly from the deep. Jump in an hour before sunset.

There, that discusses the hunting of two races of fish, only a couple hundred left to discuss. You see, spearfishing is underwater hunting, not fishing, and I see you understand that. The hunter, above all, must live to understand his quarry; learning never stops.

 

[FredT]

Differences in "take" method limitations and size limits worldwide are all supposed to ensure a continued resource. The rules seem to follow two general models, both of which can work. While seeming to be in conflict both reach the same end.

The "Brit model" used throughout the "British empire legacy countries" is a mindset that limits method of harvest, thus indirectly limiting take numbers and size limits. Most fish taken are small and sexually immature, so the few large ones that survive the gauntlet to maturity are the breeding stock. This stock is relatively protected by being trained early to be shy of divers and other "unnatural" presences and the physical limitations on the methods allowed for capture. This model is what is also common in the Med states.

The US uses a "let'm breed" method for most fisheries, allowing fish and other food animals a one or more year breeding window before harvest. Almost no small fish are intentionally taken, although the juvenile "bycatch" kill rate from shrimp nets and other trawling operations is horrific. This allows all fish a chance to breed, and the larger more commercially valuable fish are available to be harvested. This may indirectly do a reverse Darwinian selection, although the large fish that do survive produce massive amounts of juveniles.

The take method is not overly restricted, but the posession limit is strictly enforced. AS an example a person may take ONE amberjack a day, or 4 red snapper, or two cobia, but there is little general restriction on _how_ they may take them. Hook and line, trawl,noodlling (bare hands), speargun, or sling is all the same. The result is a dead fish, which is regulated _DIRECTLY_ as to size and number taken. Using explosive heads on food fish is generally frowned upon, but not totally prohibited in many states. There are similar limits on most sport/food fish in US coastal and inland waters. The restrictions on spearfishing inland are based more on the strength of the hook and line lobby fishing relative to the diver's nonexistant lobby than on any scientific facts.

We still have fish, even in heavily overfished areas around the larger east coast populatin centers. Fishermen call for temporarily closing take, and reworking size limits if the recruitment levels into the breeding populations of a particular species is insufficient to maintain populations. Once the population has rebuilt sufficiently the take size limits may be refined and fishery again reopened. Government inertia being what it is it often takes a while to close a fishery, and much longer to re-open it once stocks have rebuilt. This often results in a "panic" closure with a few years longer to rebuild stocks than it would if the system worked as it should, and a plethera of fish when it actually reopens. Of course no US citizen actually expects our government to WORK! We get along much better when it doesn't!


FT

 

[budgy]

Hi Everyone,
I dived in loch long last week, I saw few squat lobsters some hermit crabs, and some other tiny crabs, one or two very small fish, these days it seems I am diving in an empty ocean.
I suppose if I hunt out a wreck I will see a few big fish.
I hope you live long enough to lose the desire to kill.
Regards
Budgy

 

[devjr]

You are morally right and politically correct. Don't forget that our wood guns are responsible for the demise of the rain forest, and eating fish predisposes to passing gas which contributes to global warming.

 

[budgy]

There is a fish called a wrasse they come in a variety of colours,
they are very curious and tend to interact with divers and as we have been known to feed them they generally don't fear us. Sometimes they will swim with you and they are regarded as territorial you hope to see them in the same place. They are bit like pets and come very close with no fear. It makes a dive special, and I delight in their presence. I once swam in a shoal of sprats, another glorius dive. I was off-gassing on one dive and a wrasse came to check me out some 6 inches right in front of my mask. These are thrills that beat any kill.

 

[Swamp Rat]

I disagree with you Budgy. And you and I will just have to learn to disagree about this. I'm a hunter (sportsman, a harvester of land and sea or what ever you chose). One thing that I do not like is to hunt someones pet. There is no excitement or since of reaching ones goal. I hunt deer, turkey, doves, Rabbits, Squirrels, Raccoons, armodillio, Catfish, Gar, and Bowfin. I use a gun, Bow, sling shot, and speargun. I dont hunt much with a gun I use archery equipment for everything above including the fish. It is what I enjoy. I've seen the good that harvesting (killing) deer on land that is getting over populated. I would never see but one fawn if any with the does early in the season. After of few years of hunting I started to see Twins that survied. This is real good to see. Like you and your fish. But as long as we as people stay in the limits of what the bioligist set and follow the rules there is nothing wrong with hunting. I thought of hunting with the camera until I saw the need for the harvesting of game animals. I dont know how applicable it is to saltwater fish but I know for the Freshwater and land here in SC it is needed.
Good Day.

 

[devjr]

On the east coast, we have two wrasses of note, Sheepshead and Tautog. Both are big and ugly with buck teeth, and eat mussels and clams. I had a pet clam once and a wrasse ate it. Now I eat their wrasses.

 

[budgy]

Once upon a time I would kill just about anything that moved, if I didn't kill it first standing still. Last time I made a sling shot, the child I gave it to killed a robin. I was the same at his age, sport for me was death for them. I have a hunting instinct and experienced a thrill with the fish on the hook, and know the excitment of taking a shot with the animal in your sights. I have hunted rabbit and birds, and fished. There were occasions I killed creatures just for the fun of it.

I understand your point when animals are confined in limited grazing, stock must be culled, or transferred to other areas.

It seems hardly worthwhile fishing in the Clyde with a rod these days, I could still gather a meal on the sea shore within half an hour, though it would be mussels and limpets. I hear the Adriatic is dead, and the last I heard, so was Lake Superior.

There were times a fish would swim along with me just out of reach, they seem so welcoming and friendly, like a stray dog that joins you for a walk. I look at these fish and wonder how intelligent they are. I have kept pets and I think they dream, and believe they express emotions. The fish seem to interact with me in the simular way. An attempt to speed up and grab one is met by a tail flip as the fish keeps its desired distance, I like to think they are just playing a game of tag.

Somtimes the emptyness fills me with sadness.