Guernsey Day Trip

[glowworm]

This week 1 shot and myself went to Guernsey to meet with Old Man Dave,Foxfish and Portinfer.The day started early @ 5.00am for us and we arrived in Guernsey @ 8.40 am.The journey across took 2 hours and was very smooth which was made even better by my free breakfast On arrival Old Man Dave took us mackerel fishing on his boat spearfisher so we would have some fish to try out Foxy's smoker.Although the time of our arrival ment we missed the tide we still managed to catch a few and a decent sized pollock.Old Man Dave even let Captain 1 shot bring the boat back to the harbour.Foxfish met us at the harbour again and took us and our catch back to his place to fire up the smoker.With the fish filleted and the smoker on the go we met up with Ed and Old Man Dave again for the all important dive.We split into two with Foxfish and 1 shot looking for bass and Ed,myself and OMD looking for flatties.I spent most of my dive taking pictures with my new underwater camera setup.Old Man Dave soon pointed out two small blonde rays to me and Ed picked a edible crab off the bottom.Suprisingly i only saw one spider crab on my whole dive.Old Man Dave pointed out a burried plaice to me and the Ed and myself went off looking for bass leaving OMD looking for flatties.The swim across the channel was hard going with a current flowing through but Ed made it seem very easy(need to get fitter) and he had to wait for me on the other side.The underwater landscape was beautiful and not unlike the Dorset coast but they did have vast area's of tall japanese string weed.Wrasse,pollock,mullet,plaice,blonde ray and eventually bass all made an apperence.I have posted some pictures but i had an argument with my laptop and lost some of the best pictures i took 1 Shot and myself cannot express our gratitude to Foxfish,OMD and Ed enough for the hospitality they showed to us.Good company,great diving and a fantastic evening meal cooked up by chef Foxfish.We will be going back very soon...

[glowworm]

Here are some pictures of the trip...

[1 shot, 1 kill]

Good write up Glowworm.

Awesome day, much enjoyed, can't thank Foxfish, OMD and Portinfer enough.

[foxfish]

It was a good day & great to meet some other forum members. 32c, no wind & a calm sea helped the recipe for a full day of adventure. Unfortunately the tide was not so good & the vis could of been better, although we could just see the bottom at about 8mts there was some plankton around. I paired up with one shot for a fairly long swim around the headland, over some sand & into the japweed. We had a bit of exercise though the tide & one shot had a few shots with my mamba. Good dive but not many fish caught! still we ate smoked mackerel & Pollock, plaice & mullet for tea.
I really look forward to seeing you guys again

(some pics on the Guernsey thread)

[glowworm]

Managed to sort some more pictures out.

[podge]

Looks fantastic.
Nice one to all involved.
It’s a testament to the sport of spear fishing when this sort of event can take place.

[stuckinsurrey]

Some good pictures, out of interest do you carry a gun and a camera with you or do you concentrate on one or the other? If you take both do you clip it to your belt / float or carry in your spare hand?

Cheers,
Jim

[1 shot, 1 kill]

I used to carry my camera on my float and swap it round with my gun. That was until my girlfriend broke it and i sold the case to Glowworm! I have seen a couple of guys mount cameras on the tops of their guns with pretty good results, think it was fearthespear and co?

[Spaniard]

Great pics., great story, that's what all this should always be about! Can't wait to go out there myself now................

[Old Man Dave]

Thanks for the kind words guys. Must say one of the good things with the spearo scene over here at the moment is that its very friendly. We have good relations with other fishers and water users and all of the newbies are helped and encouraged. Even us old guard have mellowed with age . Also must say that deeperblue has been nothing if not an influence for good.

Glowworm your pictures were great. Such a good idea and nice to see an alternative to all out hunting. Hope you can salvage a few more as I saw a few more on your camera screen that looked good. I have a few taken years ago, on scuba, using a home made case with a Pentax K1000. Also had a few taken with a Sea & Sea 35mm compact mounted on my gun, including some "action shots" of fish being speared. Will try to look them out.

How about them shots of ray and plaice? Hard to spot even uncovered. Both of the ray were buried like the plaice but I poked them to make them move and be more visable. Actually when I saw the shots of the plaice the camera showed it up more clearly than the human eye. Would have liked to have found a buried sole to see what a pic of that would look like.

I think I could get back into underwater photography now its digital and so much better than chemical film. By the way you must have a wide angle lens. "Does this make my butt look big?" - pic 8.

Dave

[Old Man Dave]

Found a few old pictures taken with my home made housing and Pentax K1000 SLR.

Pout on a wreck at about 100ft.

Dave

Will add some more if I find them.

Old Scubby picture here http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?t=67341

Posted scubby pic shows a young OMD (yes that's me) in 1970 using some very early SCUBA gear and a spear made from an old fishing rod.

[Old Man Dave]

Close up of a buried Plaice. Incase you can't spot it, in pic 2 I've drawn over the eyes, mouth and 2 orange spots just showing.

Dave

[Mr. X]

I have a feeling I won't be seeing too many plaice. Even with the fish marked out, that's very hard to see.

[Magpie]

You and me both Xie! I'm thinking of just taking a rake with me and scraping it along to see what I can disturb. Come to think of it I have got an old heavy double rake head attached to a rope that I used for freshwater swim clearing. Could tow that along the bottom....

[glowworm]

I did manage to recover all the pictures and i have put some in my gallery which you can find in the members gallery section.