North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

As some of you might have already suspected. I spearfish!

Yep, in the last few months I dusted off the old gear(it been a while), found it was all cactus. Speargun technology has come a long way over the years, so I replaced the lot and now I’m armed to the teeth. On super neaps the water is clear enough to have a good poke around on the bottom.

Friday, myself and a few die hard spearo’s went out to Fish Reef. We leaped into the big briny at the wreck of the SS Brisbane. The keel, steel plates, the stearing gear and the props are still there. The rest has broken up and is a bit spread out over the top of the reef and is exposed at medium tides. The massive boiler is sits on the reef making it easy to find and you can make out the steel rivets. Anyway the viz was terrible (usually pretty good a day or 2 past the first neap) had a scrounge around for crays in the over hangings, but zilch).

The bottom at Bass reef is amazing, talk about Finding Nemo world!. Bommies, dissected by sandy channels with vast coral growths from 5 to 12 meters. We hunted coral trouts, cod and mixed reefies and had a ball landing enough for a feed each. Then the sharks moved in. One of the crew nailed a blubber lips from above mistaking for a small jewie, it went nuts then got slammed by a stonking bronze whaler(maybe 6-7ft long). Micky fought it from the surface with the shark taking him for a good tow trying to take possession of the speargun. Then another, the same size came in for a go, he was shadowed by about 10 GT’s? Friend’s maybe, strange fish behavior!. I was surprised the whaler didn’t tear off a bite size chuck of fish, it just sucked on it and thrashed from side to side. Still thinking he had a jew on, Micky was frantic to get his dinner in the boat, I swam down and gave the shark a prod with the spear tip and he got the message. The second one didn’t get a go at the speared blubbler lips, the GT’s swarmed it which must have put it off. Sorry RNR, didn’t see any hammerheads this time.

What a difference 200metres can make, we moved to deep water with good bottom and is was deserted. On some dives you can hear the jewies crocking to each other in the dirty water. But today it was a bit quiet. We tried another set of bommies near the mark further from the gps mark n the FF book, great bottom but only stripies, tusk and small cods lurking about. The typical bait stealing pickers we all loath. The current stared to run and the whole place shutdown. We covered huge amounts of ground looking for crays at Bass Reef, there’s a lot of terrain that would be perfect for them, but nothing!

The photo’s of the shark on the surface was another bronze stealing a reefie that was tied to a float line. Little ***ker got it too. Note that all fish attached to flat lines are stone dead, they are dispatched at the surface after been selected from the bottom and are destined for the dinner table. This is standard practice.

It’s like another dimension under the waves, something different from the usual bottom bouncing, as soon as that buildup kicks in, it’s back to flicking the plastics from the boat. The live bait debate has subsided, so I thought I’d crank it up a notch with this post.

you'll get nothing but good karma from me beastie...

people who knock spearing as a legit sport are probably the same people who hate cyclists on the roads...

lazy b*stards who think fitness is a creature in a scottish lake who pumps iron.

good on you for getting amongst it mate. great post

Nice work Beast.

I'm a spearo myself but haven't been in the water since moving up here at the start of this year. To be honest . . . . . didn't think there'd be much of a following with the extra bities in the water. I've got a couple of gas guns sittin' in the shed gathering dust. Might have to dust them off one of these days.


Scotty

Love your work BB. Great post!!!

BarraBeast wrote: went out to Fish Reef. . Anyway the viz was terrible (usually pretty good a day or 2 past the first neap)

Interesting stuff BB - I went out twice in the dive season 2 years ago to blow some bubbles on The Brisbane (same tides as you - 2 days after dead neaps), and both times 'got lost' 2 meters down - vis shite both times. I'd heard that it was supposed to be clearer out there than the harbour ??:

Haven't given it another go since

Awesome work. I have always been keen to get intp spearfishing up here after listening to countless stories from my old man spearing up here.

Jason

Nice work BB, viz looks good too

Ignoring the whole spear debate.....
You do realise what wants to kill you in the water??? ??: ??:
EVERY-bl..dy-THING!!!!!!!!!!

All said and done you spearo's are braver than me!

Well done BB...

I was out around the bottle washer and rick mills reef yesterday and there were 2 blokes spearing.... don't know how they went though... got a larf out of thier boats anti theft devise ..... they left a big kick a#se dog in the boat while they went down


Must say when I read the topic I thought you had "come out" and were going to tell us all about your********...

that would have been Rick Tripp he takes his mutt out with him

Gee Beast,

you should of come out to Marie shoals, Dodgy and Harmsey put the snorkling gear on and didn't leave the bottom rung of the ladder, the bities where too many and to big. but they said it was awesome the amount of fish under us.

cheers
Ray

went out again this morning, bumped into Nomad on the Rick Mills and 2 other boats. They kindly let us have a swim to see where the fish were

first dive and we saw a couple of jew's buried deep int he structure, these boys wernt going to chew baits today but on the second dive they have moved off. God damn GT's every where, they got so cheeky that we had to turn one into numus for tea!

We left the punters to tempt the moon fish and the gt's and tried a bit of lumpy reef near the Kaylee, scored a fat Cod and that was about all that was there. it was 16m deep so we left. it was Sunday mna , don;t want to work to hard!

Yep, us bottom bashers at rick mills and also the bottle washer couldnt raise a scale, the beast turns up and his mate has a nice solid Gt on his spear , we'd been going hard for 5 hours, the divers take 10 minutes, i think i need to take up a new hobby
Was about 8 boats on the washer and the only fish i seen raised was a boat trolling around, he picked up a nice mac. heard on the radio about 9am that someone had boated a sail out near the bus stop, with the weather he way it was, i should have headed out wider myself... we packed it in about 1pm and about a k from nightcliff ramp, the misses says , are those blokes waving at us, looked over and they certainly were, apparently they had a leak in there fuel line and did 50 litres in about 3 hours. They chucked us a tow line and 10 minutes later we were at the ramp. a good day in all, without any fish for the dinner table.

A_Nomad wrote: without any fish for the dinner table.

mate I could have handed you all the moon fish you could cope with, clouds of them on the wreck. That GT was eated last night in a special numus. Think i'll bring one home every trip from now on, they can taste great!

A_Nomad wrote:Yep, us bottom bashers at rick mills and also the bottle washer couldnt raise a scale, the beast turns up and his mate has a nice solid Gt on his spear , we'd been going hard for 5 hours, the divers take 10 minutes, i think i need to take up a new hobby
Was about 8 boats on the washer and the only fish i seen raised was a boat trolling around, he picked up a nice mac. heard on the radio about 9am that someone had boated a sail out near the bus stop, with the weather he way it was, i should have headed out wider myself... we packed it in about 1pm and about a k from nightcliff ramp, the misses says , are those blokes waving at us, looked over and they certainly were, apparently they had a leak in there fuel line and did 50 litres in about 3 hours. They chucked us a tow line and 10 minutes later we were at the ramp. a good day in all, without any fish for the dinner table.

Was myself and Matt with the Sail... or Marlin.