Vintage spearfishing film/video from the 1950s

[knowone]

And if they didn't prime the bomb before they dropped it there would be no explosion.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

And if they didn't prime the bomb before they dropped it there would be no explosion.

Knowone, I really don't quite understand this statement in the context of spearfishing.

As a former spearfisherman, I will say that it is really difficult for spearfishermen to overfish an area. Even in these competitions (which I did not partake in), it would be a challenge. Terry Lentz and some of the others were looked up to in the diving community for the skill in the water, and their ability at breath-hold diving. We really frowned upon scuba divers becoming spearfishermen (and women too), as the skill level was not nearly the same. Most of the fish that were speared we ate ourselves. I remember taking one wolf eel (actually a fish--it has pectoral fins), and it was so ugly that we dug a hole and buried it in Mom's garden out back. She grew six-foot long rubarb that next year. Then, the next time I speared one, I decided to filet it and found it had the most wonderful, white firm meat that we ate it with relish. Most people who spearfished during those times were not wealthy people, but did so in part to put some food on the table.

I don't spear fish anymore, prefering to take their photos. But it is a real challenge to do so while breath-hold diving.

SeaRat

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Allow me to clarify my position if I may.

I am not against hunting, 90% of my dives are hunting dives. I hunt on scuba and freediving, I don't have any issues about fairness to the fish or how easy it is as opposed to freediving.
My thinking is a dead fish is a dead fish, as long as all fish and game regulations are followed what's the difference? I hunt for food only. I do not give away game because I got trigger happy then decided I didn't want them. I very seldom to almost never get a full limit of any allowable fish. Everything I shoot I keep and eat. If I already have fish in the freezer or refrigerator I do not get more until what I have is gone.
I freedive for abalone because that is the only legal way to take them. I only get abalone for myself. I do not get abalone for the neighbors, friends, or for barter. If they want abalone they can learn to dive like I did and go get their own.

What I am against are contests where a very precious living organism has to die because of someone's competitive instinct. The competitors are only after the prize and the regognition for an ego boost, not the food. If they were out harvesting fish for their own/families sustenance fine, but they're not, they are looking for a psychological genital implant. Unfortunately a lot of very precious game has to die for them to get their jollies.
Why don't they just pull it out and get the measuring stick out, it would be a lot easier and a lot of fish wouldn't have to die and be given away.
It doesn't matter to me that it goes to the orphinages or the nuns or the homeless shelter.
That seems like an excuse to me for them to justify that it's all OK to do what they do.

I know the aftermath is miniscual compared to commercial fishing waste or hook and line landings, but it's the motivating mentality that's bothersome to me. You might think, well a limit's a limit what's the difference. That may be true, but is the limit for them or to give away? If it's for them can they eat everything they took. It is a law you know that you are only allowed one limit in your possesion at any given time including your freezer (a fish in the freezer is a fish in your possesion). If they go out and shoot a limit of fish then give it away, they can go right back out the next day and shoot another limit to give away and this could go on non stop (at least on the game that doesn't have an annual limit).

If they really wanted to be helpful they should mentor those children at the orphinage and teach them how to freedive so they can go get their own fish. And while they're at it teach them to respect the ocean and their bounty and take only what they can eat.

And lastly, it is because of them and the rest of the game hogs that have caused the state to shut down large sections of coastline where I live so now I am not able to go out and get one or two fish to eat.
All their chest pounding and bravado and look what it got us.
It makes me sick.

 

[elmer fudd]

My thinking is a dead fish is a dead fish, as long as all fish and game regulations are followed what's the difference?

I came to the conclusion some years ago that game regulations really have very little to do with whether something should be harvested or not. Of course they are the law, but most of our depleted fisheries got that way due to people who were operating within the law. Case in point, my parents have a house on the waterfront on the South Puget Sound. There are oysters there and state law allows something like the harvest of 24 per day. That's probably about what I harvest per year. There's just not enough of them there to support much more than that. If I took my limit once a week they'd be completely gone within a year. I love oysters, but I'd also like them to still be there 20 years from now.

My mother on the other hand regularly digs steamer clams, (manila and littleneck), and she's never bothered with a license or payed any attention to the regulations whatsoever. I know about a third of the clams she takes are undersize, but she's one of the only people I've ever seen digging steamers on what are perhaps 3 miles of beach. Since there seem to be oodles of clams there I doubt her clam digging has any impact on the resource whatsoever.

In another instance I talked with an orchard owner on one of the islands here about deer hunting about 10 years ago. Seems he shot about 10 to 15 deer a year in an effort to protect his fruit trees. The limit here is 1 deer per year and the season is about 3 weeks long. Having seen how overrun with deer some of these islands are though, I think he could have taken 10 times that number without harming the population. On the islands there are no predators and very little hunting and because of this the deer population is out of control. He may have been breaking the law, but he certainly wasn't harming the environment.

I obey the game laws myself, but it's not out of any respect for them. In this state I think they're largely arbitrary and punitive.

 

[duckbill]

........they are looking for a psychological genital implant. Unfortunately a lot of very precious game has to die for them to get their jollies.
Why don't they just pull it out and get the measuring stick out, it would be a lot easier and a lot of fish wouldn't have to die and be given away.

I can understand where you're coming from, but this is pretty much what we as hunters are doing in any case when it would be a lot easier to go to the store and buy the meat. I know it is a matter of relativity in this case, but I would find it difficult to criticize other hunters using this as the reason without realizing I was being a hypocrite. Whose to say that I'm in the right to spear five fish? What about ten? Fifty? There's just no way to say one is right and the other is wrong in a relative issue such as this, especially when the fish is not being wasted. JMO.
Now, where's that yard stick?......

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I can understand where you're coming from, but this is pretty much what we as hunters are doing in any case when it would be a lot easier to go to the store and buy the meat. I know it is a matter of relativity in this case, but I would find it difficult to criticize other hunters using this as the reason without realizing I was being a hypocrite. Whose to say that I'm in the right to spear five fish? What about ten? Fifty? There's just no way to say one is right and the other is wrong in a relative issue such as this, especially when the fish is not being wasted. JMO.
Now, where's that yard stick?......

I'm in a transitional period right now.
There was a time when I was totally down with shooting as much as I could and holding it up to get a picture for everyone to see.
My thinking has changed and continues to change. Maybe the older I get the more I realize that I have less to prove and I don't need an ego boost. I used to ab dive with a group of guys that all wanted to put $5 in a pot and the biggest ab got the pot.
It always became about the money and not the joy of getting the ab to have something to eat.

I rarely buy seafood in the store. I have have it spanking fresh so I get it myself.
I choose diving because I would be diving anyway and on the coast here I used to lose too much fishing gear in the rocks and having to go out on a boat all the time get's expensive. I can't sit on a boat in street clothes and look at the water because I start jonesing to want to get in, so diving for the fish is my solution.

If it's all legal I guess people can do what they want. It's not for me anymore. Just because something bothers me doesn't mean I have a right to tell them they can't behave that way. as long as no laws are being broken.
Personally I am changing my views and see spearfishing as a very precise selective method of gathering food in probably the least damaging way possible. However that method can also be abused.

 

[duckbill]

My thinking has changed and continues to change. Maybe the older I get the more I realize that I have less to prove and I don't need an ego boost.

I have found this to be a very common phenomenon, so much so that it is almost expected. I've known many old timers who feel badly about shooting a deer and no longer hunt, but who used to be avid trophy hunters in their younger years. I know of several avid fishermen who used to catch and eat all the fish they could get who are now pretty much catch-and-release-only geezers. More and more I even find myself feeling more sypathetic toward animals than before. I guess it's just another one of those signs of...um...maturing, probably caused by seeing more and more of our acquaintances dying, having children of our own and the natural, protective compassion associated with that, and becoming aware that our time is getting short as well. So, realizing it seems to be a part of natural development, I'm very careful not to put down the younger bucks that are just out there doing what is natural for their years.

Like you, I spear on scuba for nice, eating sized fish when I have the opportunity and it is practical to do so. Knowing how challenging it is for me to do on scuba, my hat is off to the free-diving spearos, and I have to admit a bit of awe when watching that video and seeing how much they were able to harvest while puting their lives on the line for each one of those fish.