[miles]

Boat Dives:

Have access to a boat is UNDOUBTEDLY THE best way to hunt 'tail!!! It simply opens up so many possibilities, as well as making diving safer in GWS area's.

Unfortunately, when you start hunting them from a boat, you need some fishing equipment. These are tools needed to LOCATE the fish, making it easier to spear them.

Firstly, you'll need some bungees. These are simply old 16mm bands tied with some cord in the middle. I used to use 1m by 10mm rubber, as you can purchase from Rabitech or Rob Allan, but often you'll get the small class yellowfin at Bellows, and they simply destroy your bungees!! Those 20-30kg YF's are still manage-able on a 16mm bungee. We've tried 20mm bungees, but they're too tight to effectively work on 'tail. The 20mm bungees is what we use for Yellowfin tuna, up to 60kg's, from my big boat.

Attached to the bungee, is 10 meters of 2.0mm mono, which terminates in a snap swivel with a ball bearing. Attached to the snap is a 1meter peice of 60kg mono to which a lure is attached. Check pictures for more clarity. The short 60kg peice of mono is in case a large shark or seal grabs your fish when you've hooked a fish. This will break, saving you your bungee.

I clip 4 bungees behind my boat. On most spearing boats, 2 bungees pulled at 4-6knts is ideal. Once a fish is hooked, the bungee stretches to maximum, the boat is stopped and the divers jump in IMMEDIATELY, whilst one guy on the boat brings the fish in, the rest of the school follows, allowing the spearo's to get a shot in. The 2.0mm mono is thick, so it allows the guy to pull the fish with-out cutting his hands.

When there are many boats working the same schools of fish, with bungees, you can simply speed up and not worry about bringing in the bungees. We ONLY use soft squid/feather type lures on the bungees. Rapala's, Halco's and other swimming type lures don't work well with bungees. When buying small plastic squids, YAMASHITA'S are THE BEST, but are VERY expensive and very difficult to find!! The cheaper plastic ones works well too!! Good colours are browns, both dark and light brown, greens and white. Use either single hooks or double hooks, STEER CLEAR of treble hooks!! They're very difficult to remove and semi-rigid boats HATE treble hooks!!