Forums | XtremeSpearfishing.com

Marathon Key Spearing.

2008-02-28T20:12:24Z

Hey heading down to Marathon for a week in July ( not mini season) I was there last year and shot some big grouper, but I am not 100% aware of where the protected areas are?

Can anyone shead some light?

Technology an unfair advantage. The GPS effect.

2008-03-03T18:02:26Z

Hi guys!

Back in the days it used to be that you got in the water and started swimming, looking, inspecting, descending to see better and kept doing all this good body and mental exercise until we finally located a good spot, might it be a promising cave, a ledge, a rust old junked refrigerator or whatever. And then we dove. It used to be fun!
NOW, we have marked absolutely every single hole, crack, ledge, mound, etc. where we either saw or killed a fish.
The poor things don’t stand a chance of perhaps NOT been seen…
We are now developing new branch of spear fishing I’d like to call, “boat-hopping-fishing” that is “in” and “out” as soon as we got over the symbolic X on our GPS screen.
Check it out as fast as possible, cause , gee… we have to get back on and speed to the next mark!

Gone is the quality time spent from point A to what ever next point it might be we were able to find, by our keen observation, instinct or whatever to locate, find, dive and kill our respectful prey. Now, we cheat, kind of…
The inevitable path to total supremacy of the human species over everything else, even if it might contribute to a faster rate of depredation is here to stay.
Good GPS hunting guys, who need to waste time between kills?

Jew Fish..back in the game? To kill or not to kill…that’s the question

2008-02-08T08:59:22Z

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Most of us down here in Florida know that there has been a moratorium or prohibition to hunt, fish or otherwise molest what used to be the “apex” of our spear hunter’s wet dreams… the “Jew Fish”, (Epinephelus itajara) whose traditional ancestral name apparently for politically correct issues has been changed to “Goliath grouper”. Yes…I know that there is another species very similar both in proportions and appearance (Epinephelus nigritus), sometimes called the black jewfish.
I constantly hear, either from line fishermen as well as spear ones that as a result of this Federal protection, they have over-repopulated themselves dramatically and now, in large numbers, are depleting the ocean’s bottom, destroying lobsters traps, as swell as intercepting and swallowing hooked or speared fish right out of the hands of the doers…
Rumor has it that there is going to be a special license that would allow to take a certain number of them…legally.
Have you encountered any of these babies and had a hard time refraining to do what comes natural for a spear hunter?
Have one of them ever snatched a catch right off the tip of your spear?

Reels versus line and float

2008-01-30T08:25:39Z

Like if it wasn’t dangerous enough to go venture into a foreign enviroment, (liquid by the way), while holding our breath for long periods of time, subjecting ourselves to crushing pressures, exposing our terrestrial selves to all the hazards that come with our beloved sport which is by the way, the most dangerous one on record, without excluding the drunken boat operators that cruise at high speed after having downed a lot of Heineckens paying little or no attention to what could lay in the waters ahead of his speeding boat, etc, etc. I’m running out of space to continue with a long, long list of ETCs….
We just had to make it even riskier! Here I’m going right into a controversial theme (again…) The “old school of spearfishing” taught us that the long line hooked from the handle of our spear guns all the way up to the float, or buoy, or flag marker (or however you wish to call it) was an essential and indispensable part of our gear. Both for safety purposes as well as for its utility.
Among many other uses, that I’m sure willl be enumerated on this site sooner or later, one of the most important one was that it represented our “life line” to the aerial word. It was our “connection” to the surface, our way of telling other people all around our segment of sea “Hey, guys, I’m down here…somewhere!” The captain of our boat could know at a glimpse where were we at. So could the rest of the passing-by skippers, too.
And then, the “gun reel” appeared.
Coming straight out of Europe, where conditions are totally different from ours, much smaller preys, practically absence of strong currents, extremely fewer “overhead” traffic of boats, etc. We thought, “Hey, if this is what THEY do, why not us?” And most of us went the reel way…
WE discarded our good old nylon line and that dragging float with a warning flag. Now we were absolutely on our own, who needs any one knowing where we are? Now nobody can come and snatch OUR fish. We are THE MAN!
So, now when we dive ABSOLUTELY NO ONE knows our location not even our own captain. This multiplies times over according to the number of guys that are in the water with us. HIS problem NOT ours!
Also gone with the line and buoy are the possibilities to let go of a gun compromised with a big fish with a bad shot pulling like a Hummer downwards. If you have a reel your’re left with only two choices, stick to your gun and try to forcibly reel in the beast all at the same time while kicking to the surface, holding your gun, and burning the hell out of the remaining oxigen because of the extreme resistance and effort. While there is probably no one aware, cause, remember, NO BUOY, they can’t see us!
The other choice… “Hell, I’m not going to loose my $300 gun, no way Jose!” The thought comes to our oxigen deprived brain and somehow even if logic and preservation instincts kick in, our hand still clutches to the precious and expensive gun.
We have forfeited our alternative of leaving the gun go, while letting the surface line glide in our hand as we surface. Or just let it go altogether and go to the float and retrieve it when it is our choice, not the fish’s.
Many other scenarios could be inserted here, but I’m leaving them for the other Forum members to add their 15 cents.
The main idea of my diatribe here is that the introduction of the reel might be a good thing, I’m not saying otherwise, but why not have the best of both worlds and KEEP the line and flag-buoy too?
More than one spearfishing men have lost their lives as they took the wrong decision.
They did not have what I have come to call: “The renunciation clause of their life preservation bill”. When the time comes, if you are only using the reel, will you let go? Or just wonder… I think I can make it, and hope that your family or loved ones won’t be saddened for the rest of their lives IF it happens to be THE WRONG DECISION!.
Just think about it, and you tell me.

Overconfidence or plain neglicence?

2008-02-28T08:30:02Z

I,ll just let the other members read the sad news as it is published:

.http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/c…hark_0226.html

As a scuba diver, spear fisherman and free diver when diving, be in Bahamas or in Florida, near those sites where that specific activity I’m referring to had been taking place I do have noticed that in most occasions sharks are increasingly bold and approach uninhibited. This in contrast with my previous usual experience with them years ago.
Is it the case that the natural apprehension or instinct behavior of sharks is being modified by these practices?
Are we creating a kind of Pavlovian reflex associating human beings with easy food?

__________________

Rick G. Hernandez

“Today’s 60’s are yesterday’s 40’s”

Lessons learned - a SWB Story

2007-12-01T11:09:23Z

This Sunday’s diving started like any other. Far to early and with not enough sleep. I was aboard a boat with 5 others, bound for some ledges 15miles off the coast of Daytona Beach Florida. Cobia were running and we had plans to take a few home. It would be some fairly challenging free diving, depth being 75’ to 85’, and visibility was poor, the water being green stained and heavy with suspended particulate, about 20‘ of viz. seas were a choppy 2’ with a noticeable surface current. I was diving alone, the 3 other divers aboard being scuba divers. I was used to this scenario, in my 10+ years of free diving I was accustomed to diving solo, typically being at a loss for buddies and finding myself a tag-along on scuba diving boats . I started my diving with a warm up. Some light stretching and breath control on the surface before making a series of warm up dives in 10’ increments down to about 60’. when I felt comfortable, and fully relaxed I slipped below the waves and headed for the bottom. The diving was great, while the other divers burned up their first tank of the day, I did a few nice relaxing dives to the bottom, using their surfacing bubbles to mark the ledge’s location. I am a careful diver, and I kept the bottom time short, and gave myself very long (at least 8min) surface intervals. Was deep, dark and comfortable spearing that yielded a couple nice fish.

After short lunch break and we moved to another spot and the diving resumed. The winds had picked up and the surface current increased, so I was having a hard time maintaining a fix on the new ledge and changed tactics to hanging onto a rope that trailed behind the boat for my breath ups. A few more dives and no fish, I was way off the mark and diving to a flat sandy patch far from the ledge. Those fishing onboard had caught a few small sharks, but not much else. Two of the scuba divers were now back on the boat and I prepared to do my last dive of the day. I dropped down to the sand at around 80’ and two large snappers cruised in to check me out, I aim at the larger of the pair, squeezed off a shot and watched the stoned fish fall to the bottom as I turned the dive and headed for home. I had just become positive (about 30’ from the surface) when I reached down to arrest the reel as something was causing the line to play out rapidly. And that’s the last thing I remember.

I regained consciousness on the surface. Gagging, coughing, gunless and very confused. My arms and legs would not function well and my entire body felt like it was on fire. I was breathing like a scared rabbit and could feel my heart racing in my chest. My mind became suddenly very sharp and very clear. I knew two things. I had just had a shallow water blackout and I was drowning. I spun around as best I could and saw the boat a ways off and began to wave. I was to busy coughing to yell and could barely keep my head above water. With no sign of response from the boat, I decided that I had two options, get to the boat, or drown. It donned on me at this point to remove my weight belt. it was light at 6lbs, but I could not seem to make my fingers work the buckle, they were very tingly and useless. I drew my knife and cut the belt away. Dropping my edge I started the swim back. It took what seemed like hours to get to the boat. Constantly coughing and gagging, my arms suffering from a serious lack of motor control, and my legs burning with every kick. When I had the ladder in sight I mustered what I had left and grabbed hold, swinging my legs into the rungs. That was it. I was spent. I had just enough energy left to maintain my grip. The other divers, all now back on the boat asked me if I was ok, when I shook my head side to side they dragged my limp body by the arms onto the deck of the boat. I was laid on my side and my mask and wetsuit top removed.

The lads on the boat has seen me waving and had soon realized I was in trouble. They had tried to pull anchor but it was firmly stuck. Now, as I laid on the deck, coughing up large amounts of pink frothy blood, I could overhear then struggling to break it free. During the hour ride to shore I continued to cough blood, and my breathing stayed very shallow and rapid. A constant stream of water trickled out of my nose while my sinus and various other cavities drained. My heart felt like it was going to burst from my chest and my arms and legs were burning and slow to respond.

When I arrived at the hospital, I was quickly moved to a bed in the emergency room. I was shivering uncontrollably, despite wearing pants and a large jacket. My heart was in Atrial Fibrillation and my heart rate hovered between 170 and 180 beats per minute. After being poked and prodded, having blood drawn, absorbing lots of IV fluids, multiple chest x-rays, and seeing more then a few docs I was diagnosed with Bilateral Pneumonia as a result of inhaling a substantial quantity of seawater. With various medications my heart rate was returned to a normal sinus rhythm, and oxygen therapy helped me breath a little easier. I spent two full days in hospital and have now returned home, mentally and physically exhausted.
So, what have I learned from this little adventure? Well I’ll never free dive solo again, that’s foremost. And no matter how careful and cautious I think I’m diving, SWB can still sneak up and rear it’s ugly head at any time. As I don’t know of anyone that has had a SWB alone and survived I consider myself very very lucky and I ask those that have to just read this to not make the same mistake I did. don’t be an fool (like me), ignorance and over confidence nearly cost me my life. Always dive with a buddy. It doesn’t matter how good you think you are, or how long you have been diving, this could happen to you. It’s instantaneous, gives no warning signs and hits like a freight train.

I have been told not to free dive for at least 4 weeks to give my lungs time to recover fully. A horrible thought, diving is a huge part of my life, but far better then the alternative.

I would like to thank Chiung & Son, Alex, Mike, and Jessie for their help in keeping my poor dumb ass alive and getting me to the hospital. such help I’ll never forget, and hope to oneday repay.

*****posted Nov.23 on spearfishingplanet.com*******