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Blue water from shore? how?

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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theykilledkenny

New Member
Oct 18, 2007
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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??
 
I notice that you are from Lebanon. Here is a story from Freedivelist by a guy who does well swimming from shore there.

 
Reactions: foxfish
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...??
 
TKK...focus! start with reef fishing first...real bluewater hunting needs different gear and different techniques
 
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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
 
Reactions: Mr. X and spaghetti
Excellent video. Boisterous aren't they.
 
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
 

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Reactions: Mr. X
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
 
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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]
 
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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"...:t)
Apnea Magazine - DANIELE PETROLLINI: UNA RICCIOLA DA BRIVIDI
 
nice story. i can barely understand italian though, does anyone know where i can get similar stories/that same story in english??
 
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.
 
nice story. i can barely understand italian though, does anyone know where i can get similar stories/that same story in english??
Perhaps this will help: Translated version of http://www.apneamagazine.com/articolo.php/1622 (or not).

I just put together a flasher made from leftover spoon handles (I used the bowls to make flounder spoons) which are reminiscent of sandeels; a big fishing weight (5oz, recovered from the sea) to keep it down & stop it tangling (the 10oz weight on a Lidls handline might be even better) & a couple large muppets (cheap rubber squid-like lures) to hide the weight & add variety. Although it occurs to me now that Eddystone/Delta eels, or cheap copies, w/o hook might also attract bass/mullet/pollock. Holographic feathers might work too -- saw pollock smashing small silver fry (only visible as quick flashes of silver) last year & mullet were often hanging around nearby when the small silver fry were about.
 
Reactions: sunfish
Lucky for you you are allowed to chum. Correct me if im wrong but here in southern california it is illegal to chum. I didnt know that until recently when a friend told me about it. Before i knew it was illegal i would take sea urchins and chum up the water with them, it worked really well. Now i know better and have stopped which is starting to help me increase my skills. Just a tid bit of info. use what you have out there around you to help you out.
 
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Reactions: Mr. X
roflX, that translations the best.roflroflWe know the sea was calm anyway.
 
i do alot of bay fishing, in texas before hurican Mitch the seas where extreamly calm off shore and in the bays, i speared 3 mahi mahi over 40lbs in 2 days IN THE BAY!! i couldent balieve it... the only problem was the sharks where also every where (not normal eaither... i think its probly just a crazzy fluke in weather makeing perfect conditions for blue water fish to come inland....
 
I like the idea of deploying a sort of small FAD while shore diving, I think I'm gonna try build one, has anyone tried this? I was thinking a small simple float and weight with flashers in the middle, I'm thinking maybe that was mentioned in this thread...but was wondering if it was meant as a standalone device that you leave for a while or was it an attachment to a float and gun line?
 
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