With terrible weather throughout the SE United States we have been waiting for a weather window to run across to the Bahamas to practice with our Riffe Pole Spears we have been developing. The water has been so cold for so long at home no one has even been in the water for the last few months.
When the weather finally broke we left at 0400 in the morning on a 34ft Yellowfin with Twin 275 Outboards and hauled ass across the Gulf Stream to the Bahama Bank. 4 hours later we were at our destination, checked through customs and assembling our pole spears for the week.
Over the next few days we saw plenty of good fish and dove patiently together videoing and diving safely together taking the time to work each fish out of the holes and only shoot the ones we really wanted.
The very first dive I dove to 30 feet to clear the bubbles out of my wetsuit and turned to find a 10ft Hammerhead checking out my fin tips. "Ok so its going to be like that," I'm thinking the whole trip is going to be shark infested but amazingly we only saw a few others the rest of the week.
It is so cool hunting with a pole spear. With the guns we have now anyone can take a shot from 20 ft away and get fish but with a pole spear you have to learn the fish and gain their trust to get within 3-6 feet to get a good shot on them. Then when you do get them you have to get your hands on them and wrench them to the surface before the sharks get there or they carry all your gear over the drop off into the Abyss.
This is a lot easier when you have hogfish and lobsters that most people shoot in the Bahamas but we always push the limits of what people deem possible and I want to see what my gear is capable of.
Turns out, almost anything is possible with the right patience and equipment.
I watched Brad in 2000feet of water stalk a school of Wahoo that until a few years ago I'd never believe possible to take with a Pole Spear. On the video you can see Brad dive and the one fish he has picked out come off the rest of the school to within only a few feet of the end of the spear and then in a flash the fish is gone and the float line is running through his hands and the buoy screaming by. That shooting pelagics with a pole spear is possible still blows my mind. That is two wahoo I've seen shot with a pole spear in the last year and this one I have on video!!!
The drift before that the same drama had unfolded with Brad shooting a nice Dolphin (Mahimahi) stoning it with a shot to the spine in the open blue.Another day found us on the reef breathing up to shoot a nice hogfish in a hole. Just as I was to leave the surface an Amberjack comes past and I dive to only twenty feet and wait as he changes course to investigate. If it had been two minutes earlier I would have easily shot him with the float line attached and just fought him from there but hunting in the holes we had already detached it.
Got to stone him. Got to stone him. Got to stone him.
Thats all that was going through my head as he comes close and I can see those strong shoulders flexing for a fight.
Whoosh! I release the pole spear and the tip hits him just behind and above the eye.
STONED!!!!!
Oh shit. Never mind. He takes off spiraling down to the bottom 50 feet below with me hanging on to my precious equipment. As we are falling I'm working my way down the shaft to the tip and the fish and first try to grab him at about 45 feet. Immediately he head butts me and my mask is now affixed to the side of my face over my right ear and I'm blind. On the video all of this is captured perfectly but I think Brad was either laughing or coming to help either way he doesn't get out of the way and the fish knocks the camera from his hands and all you can see is whitewater on the surface as I skull drag him to my precious air. IN the midst of it all he also managed to impale my leg with the spear puncturing my leg and wetsuit in the process.
That was the first and last amberjack we shot on the trip. At only 25lbs he was small but feisty and I was kidding myself thinking it was a good idea to shoot him without a float line.
Its been a solid year of diving all over the world but every time I look at trips to take grabbing the pole spears and taking the boat across to the clear water of the Bahamas has to be at the top of the list.
CK
When the weather finally broke we left at 0400 in the morning on a 34ft Yellowfin with Twin 275 Outboards and hauled ass across the Gulf Stream to the Bahama Bank. 4 hours later we were at our destination, checked through customs and assembling our pole spears for the week.
Over the next few days we saw plenty of good fish and dove patiently together videoing and diving safely together taking the time to work each fish out of the holes and only shoot the ones we really wanted.
The very first dive I dove to 30 feet to clear the bubbles out of my wetsuit and turned to find a 10ft Hammerhead checking out my fin tips. "Ok so its going to be like that," I'm thinking the whole trip is going to be shark infested but amazingly we only saw a few others the rest of the week.
It is so cool hunting with a pole spear. With the guns we have now anyone can take a shot from 20 ft away and get fish but with a pole spear you have to learn the fish and gain their trust to get within 3-6 feet to get a good shot on them. Then when you do get them you have to get your hands on them and wrench them to the surface before the sharks get there or they carry all your gear over the drop off into the Abyss.
This is a lot easier when you have hogfish and lobsters that most people shoot in the Bahamas but we always push the limits of what people deem possible and I want to see what my gear is capable of.
Turns out, almost anything is possible with the right patience and equipment.
I watched Brad in 2000feet of water stalk a school of Wahoo that until a few years ago I'd never believe possible to take with a Pole Spear. On the video you can see Brad dive and the one fish he has picked out come off the rest of the school to within only a few feet of the end of the spear and then in a flash the fish is gone and the float line is running through his hands and the buoy screaming by. That shooting pelagics with a pole spear is possible still blows my mind. That is two wahoo I've seen shot with a pole spear in the last year and this one I have on video!!!
The drift before that the same drama had unfolded with Brad shooting a nice Dolphin (Mahimahi) stoning it with a shot to the spine in the open blue.Another day found us on the reef breathing up to shoot a nice hogfish in a hole. Just as I was to leave the surface an Amberjack comes past and I dive to only twenty feet and wait as he changes course to investigate. If it had been two minutes earlier I would have easily shot him with the float line attached and just fought him from there but hunting in the holes we had already detached it.
Got to stone him. Got to stone him. Got to stone him.
Thats all that was going through my head as he comes close and I can see those strong shoulders flexing for a fight.
Whoosh! I release the pole spear and the tip hits him just behind and above the eye.
STONED!!!!!
Oh shit. Never mind. He takes off spiraling down to the bottom 50 feet below with me hanging on to my precious equipment. As we are falling I'm working my way down the shaft to the tip and the fish and first try to grab him at about 45 feet. Immediately he head butts me and my mask is now affixed to the side of my face over my right ear and I'm blind. On the video all of this is captured perfectly but I think Brad was either laughing or coming to help either way he doesn't get out of the way and the fish knocks the camera from his hands and all you can see is whitewater on the surface as I skull drag him to my precious air. IN the midst of it all he also managed to impale my leg with the spear puncturing my leg and wetsuit in the process.
That was the first and last amberjack we shot on the trip. At only 25lbs he was small but feisty and I was kidding myself thinking it was a good idea to shoot him without a float line.
Its been a solid year of diving all over the world but every time I look at trips to take grabbing the pole spears and taking the boat across to the clear water of the Bahamas has to be at the top of the list.
CK