Blue water from shore? how?

[theykilledkenny]

hi
having no boat, nor kayak, all the spearfishing i do has been from shore. i get the feeling that most of the action here takes place no further than 40 metres from shore, and at a depth of not deeper than 7 metres. everytime i go further, if notice that the sea bed is desert like, barely fish. not very exciting. so i stay closer to shore, but the fish that close to shore of course are also not that big.
so the questions are: how do i find the good spots? how do i find the bluewater predators (jacks, bonito, kingfish...)? just swim out with a flasher maybe, and lie still and wait?? or do i have to see fish/birds/some structure before i bother to swim out that far...??
and any advice on finding those larger bream/grouper?
anyone with good tips on spearing in the med??

[Bill McIntyre]

I notice that you are from Lebanon. Here is a story from Freedivelist by a guy who does well swimming from shore there.

Almost a year ago I posted a thread about catching a
50kg amberjack. I remember how Terry Mass added the
story as a Noatble catch under IBRC since the world
record there is 73kg.

To celebrate this the 1 year now(December 12th, 2006)
since Marc shot his famous 50kg IUSA world record
amberjack, i have uploaded the video to youtube. You
can also find below the story that was posted in
regards to the catch. It would interesting to read the
recapture the sotry before rwatching the movie.

The link is:
YouTube - IUSA World Record Amberjack 50 kg

The story:

Tuesday the 12th of December, 2006 was a day that I am
sure that I will cherishfor the rest my life. Marc and
I have been working on a new documentary for almost a
month, and so far the largest fish landed on video was
a 17 kg king fish. On Tuesday the 12th of December
2006, Marc, Sam, and I met in Kfirabidaa at 11am and
the sea was flat with great visibility. As Marc and I
hit the waters, we swam for 15 minutes before taking
our first dive at 16 meters, followed by a second dive
at 18.5 meters. As we started taking our third dive
and the film started rolling, I noticed Marc Making a
quick turn and started extending his speargun, so I
followed him slowly and to my disbelief I noticed a
very large amberjack swimming only 7 meters below us
and moving directly towards Marc. I continued to film
without making a single movement and noticed through
the LCD screen that the amberjack was approaching Marc
closer and closer. At a certain point, I thought that
marc should have gone for the shot but instead, and
since he was very excited, he decided to wait a little
bit more and aim better. 2 seconds later Marc went for
his shot while being only 1 meter away from the
amberjack and bam the shaft went directly into top of
the amberjacks gill plate few cm’s below the
amberjacks eye, just on the yellow line. At this
moment the amberjack froze for a second and started
swimming away slowly and then madly started opening
his gills left and right. At that moment I recalled
another 50-60 kg amberjack that I shot in Monsef last
month, and I could still recall how it opened its
gills for the shaft to fall off. I was worried that
the same thing could happen again and started swimming
towards it to shoot more movies just in case the
amberjack got loose. As I started moving closer
towards it, the amberjack started swimming away and
few seconds later I started ascending to see Marc
swimming very fast since the Amberjack has taken the
whole 50 meters of line and there was nothing we can
do but to swim behind it. The first thing I told Marc
when I reached the surface that it was a great shot,
and Marc replied yes, but it will get loose! We
continued swimming for around 30 minutes behind the
amberjack and at a certain moment Mark slapped his
hand on the water and told me that the amberjack has
gotten loose. Oh my god I said, and seconds later he
felt the pull once again and we kept swimming behind
it until it finally got tired and marc started pulling
the line towards him very slowly. 2 or 3 minutes
later, while still filming Marc succeeded in bringing
the Amberjack to the surface since we didn’t have a
spare speargun to go for a killer shot. I gave Marc my
knife and he swam slowly from behind it and jumped
above the water to stab the knife as deep as possible
in its head and started shouting in celebration. Oh my
god, what we thought could be 30-40 kg amberjack
turned out to be a monster and we started celebrating
in disbelief.

Later we realized that the shaft went only 6 or 7cm
deep into its gill plate, and luckily, the single
flopper opened and being very patient with the
amberjack paid off and the flopper didn’t break. Few
minutes later, I embraced the amberjack and decided to
surf on it to shore. It took us almost 1 hour to
return back and when we returned we saw our friend Sam
waiting for us in disbelief. It took the three of us
to pull it out of the water and we started taking
pictures with it. We went to Mina to weigh it. When we
put it on the scale, we realized that it was a 50kg
amberjack. We went to my place, took a shower, put on
the firehouse, ordered dinner, and watched the movie
6-8 times. It was one of these rare days in ones
life when pure luck and perfect conditions all meet
together.

Best regards,

Dia Captan

[theykilledkenny]

wow. nice story thanks alot
good thing also i know these places....

[theykilledkenny]

no one? ok, different question: does anyone have any advice on finding fish when spearing from shore, and can you only chum from a boat, or do people also chum from shore, and how is it transported to the place you want to use it...??

[Pastor]

Have you seen the hunting technique thread?

[Marwan]

TKK...focus! start with reef fishing first...real bluewater hunting needs different gear and different techniques

[miles]

Hiya

Finding fish is probably THE most difficult aspect of speafishing!! Most spearo's will be very happy to teach you techniques and chat about gear, but once spots where good fish are to be found is broached, they'll become tight-lipped!!

Lots of things affect fish holding spots. Start off by keeping a spearing diary. Make notes on tide, viz., prevailing winds and currents. Some spots will be barren on the low tide, yet have loads of fish on the high tide. Similarly, some spots will hold lots of fish in cetain winds. Take note of where other spearo's fish and what they catch as well as what the conditions were like. Pretty soon you'll have a good idea of where to find fish!!

Some things to help:
Fish LOVE structure. Reefs, wrecks or pinnacles are good spots to start. Any structure that is considerabily shallower than its surroundings will be a good place to start looking. Say, a 10m pinnacle in 30m of water. Look also for bait fish. Large predatory fish will be fairly close by.

Get a chart of the sea bottom in your area. Look for the shallow spots and try and find them. Not easy doing shore-dives, but still do-able.

Watch fisherman and see where they fish!!

Definitely do use a flasher for game fish. Even some reef fish will respond to flashers.

Chumming is a bit more difficult when shore diving. Firstly, it attracts sharks, which might not be an issue in your area. Since you're shore-diving, your chum will have to be fish that you need to shoot!!

Your simplest method is simply to drift with the current over an area with a flasher. That way, you'll attract pelagics to you, as well as being able to scout the terrain.

Hope that helps!!

Regards
miles

[Mr. X]

Excellent video. Boisterous aren't they.

[theykilledkenny]

hi miles, thanks!
i made a flasher about a week ago, but the weather sucks and i havent had the chance to try it.
its about 16 cds, super glued back to back, and chopped into nice little pieces with a knife, which i heated with a blowtorch.
i tried to attach some pics, hope it worked...what do u think?
oh and i seized the opportunity to show off my new gun

[spaghetti]

TKK I assume that you're not actually interested in real blue water hunting, but in catching some fish bigger than the ordinary reef/inshore fish. Did I get it right?
Here some scattered thoughts:
1) First off, it's not necessarily true that big ones don't get close to the shore: some big pelagics like leerfish and amberjacks come close to the shore for hunting, even on a 5 meters bottom, especially when it's season (in my country it's between august and october, don't know about Lebanon). There'll come a day while you'll be stalking some bream, turn around a rock and find yourself face to face with the big head of a fantastic leerfish. Or some day you'll be performing a static aspetto on some barely decent bass, when suddenly you'll notice that a curious amberjacks will be wacthing you from a side....Just get ready to shoot it right, open the friction of your Omer Match 50 reel and kick as hell up to the surface!!!
2) Watch the bait, those schools of small fishes which are food for the bigger ones, but also medium size fish like bass and mullets, which are food for the pelagics. If the small bait is nervous and move around in a compact "ball" near the surface, some leerfish or AJ or bonito may be nearby on the prowl. If the bait are compact and nervous down to the bottom, there might be some big dentex or bluefish. If you see a school of mullets or breams run fast as hell, there is for sure some big predator running behind them (barracuda, bluefish or bigger).
3) Where to go? In choosing right spots for hunting big ones near the shore you have to consider variable and constant features.
a) variables: current, water temp, presence of bait et cetera
b) constants. The best spots to look for pelagics near the shore are exactly the ones that logics suggest. Pelagics are fish who live in open deep sea. If you want to find them inshore on shallows, you have to choose borderline places between deep and shallow, between inshore waters and open seas. This said: Choose promontories that protrude from the coastline out towards open sea, or reefs that suddenly fall down very deep, or the "cap" of pinnacle rocks rising from deep to shallow (or off shore shoales if you ever have access to a boat).
4) everything that Miles said!
Feel free to ask for more

[theykilledkenny]

more please
yes, thats pretty exactly what i needed, thanks!

[Mr. X]

Super flasher. Let us know how you get on with it.

Talking of huge amberjacks, here's an even bigger one caught from shore: World Record For Men's Amberjack
[Looks like the European World record is quite a bit bigger than the American "World record" Amberjack in this case -- who'd have thought it]

[spaghetti]

Originally Posted by Mr. X

Super flasher. Let us know how you get on with it.

Talking of huge amberjacks, here's an even bigger one caught from shore: World Record For Men's Amberjack
[Looks like the European World record is quite a bit bigger than the American "World record" Amberjack in this case -- who'd have thought it]

This one caught by Daniele Petrollini, a member of our national team, weighs "only" 40 kilograms. What makes the story interesting is the gun it has been stoned with: a normal euro 100cm with a single pair of screw in bands and a skinny 6mm single flopper shaft (some americans would call it "flimsy"...)
Apnea Magazine - DANIELE PETROLLINI: UNA RICCIOLA DA BRIVIDI

[theykilledkenny]

nice story. i can barely understand italian though, does anyone know where i can get similar stories/that same story in english??

[Groupermadness]

Hi TKK. To maybe help with the chumming from shore, i used to take a small pneumatic with me and trident tip and spend an hour or so in the shallows filling a stringer with small wrass and other abundant shorline fish, the rest is natural, go to the area you wish to hunt, drop anchor on the float and start chopping, drop a couple os strings of flashers with small floats on one end and weight on other, and hang about to see what comes along, meanwhile carry on with hunting as normal, you have however with the blinkers and chum increased your chances of a larger predetory fish coming to have a look.

happy hunting.

PS. shooting a large fish is the easy part, surviving the experience keeping and getting it to shore, well thats another kettle of fish.

Peter.