I tried the circle trick at a new location yesterday. It worked again, albeit in a different way. After spooking a fairly large mullet that was resting/sunning itself on a flat open flat bottom right up against a bed of short stringly weed (v. similar situation to the one I found sunning itself on top of a reef a few weeks ago). I fired but it was too quick (again). So I re-loaded and circled round. This time I encountered a large mullet (probably the same one) as I had just got beyond half way round the circle. It dithered & succumbed to the spear, 6" from the tail -- not the best location to spear a feisty mullet!
After stringing that one on my new belt stringer, I spooked a bass which appeared and disappeared in front & beneath me before I could react. I gave chase but lost track of it (do others give chase -- I know SA spearos do from the Len Jones book but never heard anyone mention else it). Then returned & encountered a fast moving mullet that appeared confused (perhaps seeing the strung mullet?) and succumbed to the spear. This one was smaller than it first appeared but still a decent fish.
The 75cm Omer XXV is working well on mullet but has yet to take its first bass (had one difficult bass shot yesterday but missed). BTW I am currently using a double wrap of spear-line, of which half is 3mm bungee. It was unnecessary for the fish taken so far but might have been necessary for the missed bass. Might try a single wrap but with half bungee next.
BTW I was bored at one point on the other side of the bay, before encountering the above fish, and decided to clear my mask while on aspetto by blowing air into my mask, which caused large, noisy bubbles which to my surprise quickly brought in large wrasse & small pollock rushing to see what was about (perhaps used to fisherman dropping lobster pots or cleaning fish?). Unfortunately no bass or mullet though
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