I decide to undo one rubber from my double rubber, 1.1m undersea barracuda! And swim round looking for luderic when, it happen, salmon surround me from every where, I dive down excited. I remember how Simon told me to pick one that will swim ahead in front of the gun and aim and fire but Paul Roso mode doesn’t kick in. I aim and fire but the spear nicks the fish after falling short from only having one rubber and at full range. I go up as they circle and reload but get tangled, I undo the tangle and chase the school, it hurts to load the rubber on my stomach but I don’t care. I can’t see any but this time hunting mode kicks in, I dive to the bottom and find them; I chose one that looks ok and wait, wait and head shot! Didn’t stone it but still all good, my rig got a little tangled so I spent 4min fixing it up.
Still was angry at myself since when I saw the school there was a goatee the size of Pete’s on the bottom feeding with a baby snapper or bream which I couldn’t find now. Suddenly out off nowhere, a dead garfish floats by, hmmm.
It doesn’t say anything in the rules that they have to be alive when you find them? I try rigging it and its head nearly disintegrates and I wonder what one does when they catch garfish, impale my float with it? The salmon was still having a cry about me shooting it so I shoved the garfish in its mouth so it could do something use full and hold onto it for me. There were a lot of big mowies out today and saw a lot of small under 500g snapper, only one being about that.
I went back to look for it and decided to look in a cave around 12m had a look and went up and was going to go on when, what do you know a cuttle fish comes out to get shot. Go down and shoot it, spear goes through and hits bottom but was cushioned by the firkin calamari which was 3kilos or so. Though I was trying to be like Ahab and go into comp mode as he says, I wanted a feed of rings and my dad likes them so I have a lump of muck to drag round now. I go back to where I though I saw the salmon and bellow where bream. I’m looking round at a spot next to a 1m drop off to flat sandy weed on rock, “yes! I see some good bream!”
“Yes! I see a spangled Emperor twice as big!” hunting mode kicks in, it’s there 1m from the bottom in the middle of the flat area, chilling out with the bream, which it looked like from far away.
“let’s go,” I take a half lung full so it’s easier to sink, make a little movement and a few kicks. I level with it at 7m and don’t equalize or make any movements to scare it, my gun extended. I decide to go crash its party, it swims away doing some turns and I glide and wait, wait for the invitation and hello Bam! Ow yeah didn’t miss this one. Didn’t stone it but came close to its head, so I was happy since it’s the second time I’ve seen them, first being in clovely. It put up a fight, jabbed me with its spines and made a tangle of my rig that took 10min to undo. All good. I decided to stay there and look for the bream and goatee, I also saw 1kilo drummer, leathers, small silvers, sergeant bakers, lots of luderic and bream. I ended up shooting my first bream, which I forgot to take to eat and tried hand catching leather jackets not being bothered to shoot. I was unlucky and didn’t shoot anything else, my sinus played up a bit but I fixed it by blowing out from the nostril that went with the ear. It fixed it for 15min each time but taking out all the seal snot, my nose hurt from the mask and I went out of hunting mode. I still tried getting luderic but it was time to head back. I stopped to see a why a diver got out on the rocks thinking like ahab says “either a shark or a big Jew?” made it to shore after battling the rip and waited to see if anyone else came out. Turned out it was someone else so I grab my 8 or 9kilo’s of fish and my gear and ran like a crazy Ukrainian to get the fish weighed, I was 15min late but it wasn’t an Aliman, would have made it if I had a sea devil.
Scuba Pete won with 8 species, biggest fish was 6kilo kingfish that John speared, first one and congrats, most meritous fish was my 1.3 kilo spangled Emperor and highest scoring fish was my fat mowie the new guy let go at 2.3 kilo’s and around 90 points. Take that Sash aka shadowkiller akaa mowie killer.
To comment on the day, I’d have to say there were two mayor factors in me shooting the Emperor,
1) My gear got me there in one piece and it worked, thanks to Ahab lending me some gear and helping me get the gun.
2) By learning from divers like Ahab who also got me to dive with Paul and watch someone in true hunting mode which I can’t yet come close to imitating.
3) Bit of luck is also good. lol and if Dave had slept through today that poor fish would still be swimming round in the ocean. Ow and maybe global warming also helped.
Still there is always room for improvement as Ahab say’s, still hasn’t caught Moby thingy. I missed out on 5 other species from in experience and bit of confusion as rules changed for this comp a bit. Eg pike and leathers
As a note that darn cuttle fish was such a pain to clean, esp after I burst it’s ink sack. It’s back bone came out easy but, by cutting at the front off it, it had a beak like a parrots and boogly eyes.
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