New Year's Eve spearfishing in Russia

[hyeparis]

Thank you, Monchan!
I am not alone in doing this either in Russia or beyond. ILDiver is informing us that they diving in winter in Wisconsin. This gives me solace that when the Measurement Day comes I won't be alone at the bottom of the table with final results.
May I ask whether you spearfish in Japan and, if so, where I can read up on this subject. A group of spearos from Moscow visited the Kuril islands last year and they filmed how they speared off the Shikotan island - mostly it was morray eels.

 

[monchan]

Mate I take my hat off to anyone who dives in those conditions. Yeah I do spearfish here, Although last year was my first season and I have only ever used a pole spear.
I did used to do a bit back in Australia when I was young. Again only with a polespear. But I get plenty of fish and I don't go hungry. I have got myself a gun for this coming season, I hope it's not too difficult to get used to. The rest of my kit I'm trying to put together bit by bit. (when the wife in in a good mood)

Anyway the fish I mainly get are

Ishidai/ striped Knifejaw , Great eating / good sashimi
Kurodai/ black sea bream, also great eating/ sashimi.
These are the two I hunt for the most.

others that I like to get are

leatherjackets although easy, I like eating them
flathead
flounder
rockcod
squid and oysters/ really big ones in the summer.

‹›“Ë‚«EƒXƒsƒAƒtƒBƒbƒVƒ“ƒO‘‡ƒTƒCƒg MOGULER'S DELIGHT this is a site with an English page not much info. It's a club that uses homemade polespears. It's got a photopage you can see some of the fish I mentioned.

é‹ÊŒ§âŒËŽsEƒGƒLƒXƒp[ƒg@ …’†eE”Ì”„@ƒXƒsƒAƒtƒBƒbƒVƒ“ƒO(‹›“Ë‚«)AƒXƒsƒAƒKƒ“(…’†e)AŽèçó(Žèƒ‚ƒŠ)Aƒƒ“ƒOƒtƒBƒ“A–ÀʃEƒGƒbƒgƒX[ƒc“™A”Ì”„‚µ‚Ä‚¨‚è‚Ü‚·B‚¨Žæ‚舵‚¢ƒ[ƒJ[@RIFFE(ƒ‰ƒCƒtEƒ‰ƒCƒtƒ‹)EKOISANEDIVEWAYSEOMER(ƒIƒ}[EƒIƒ}[ƒ‹)EO.ME This one is an equipment shop (expensive)
but has some good photos pages of some of the fish we have,

On spearfishing planet there are a lot of people who spearfish in Okinawa, but I don't know much about things done there. I'm sure it's different and better than where I am. But I get good tasty fish pretty well everytime I go. I'm usually in and out within two hours with a good meal or two.

And the best thing is the beaches are mostly deserted. And I just bought a house 5mins from the beach. And my closeest spearfishing spot is about 15 mins by car.
Can't wait for spring. So I'll give you an invite as well, if you feel inclined to visit japan.

 

[monchan]

Wow those links look funny, They seem to work though??

 

[ILDiver]

Wow those links look funny, They seem to work though??

I found this out too, converting links to a Ukraine site. The program that goes and gets the page titles does not like UTF-8 characters. So the link gets scrambled. I just edited mine to say what I want or found the text on the page and copy and paste it in. But the link is still good.

 

[hyeparis]

2 Monchan.
Thank you. The links did work. The first one opened up with quite a few impressive photos.
Lucky you! I wish I could live by the sea too.

 

[hyeparis]

Video I have just finished from clips flimed in 2005-2007
it is about spearfishing (sort of) in winter in small rivers of central Russia
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb15zEDp5FI]YouTube - Winter spearfishing (sort of) in Russia[/ame]

 

[ILDiver]

GAH! I am so jealous. That opening scene is Great! The building in the distance. Love it. Nice video!.

 

[hyeparis]

2 ILDiver.
Thank you for the kind words! The building is a former monastery built several centuries ago, but turned into a sanitarium during Soviet times. Recently, they have restored the cross on it and pained the walls - so it looks magnficent.

 

[hyeparis]

I went to the Seliger lake - 300 km away from Moscow - for a three-day get together of spearos that hang out at the spearfishing/diving club of the Russian Naby's central sports club which culminated in a cup hosted by this organization. We drove for about 3 and a hafl hours (heavy traffic) and then rode about 3 km in a fast boat by a beautiful monastery to a wild spot where about 50 spearos and their families were camping out. The visibility turned out to be low - only about 1 meter in most of the lake, but 3-meter in one of the parts connected to the main lake by a small channel. We scouted the lake for two days on boats, but could not find anything decent, other than pikes, tenches, although more experienced spearos (mostly local guys) got some eels. The second day was my birthday so my buddy (it was the second time in his life that he tried to spearfish - I convinced him to give it a try) got real drunk and the next day when the cup was to take place he would not wake up! So my team, which I officially designated as Nagorno Karabakh team, turned out to be a one-man show. First I dove for eels - there is a grassy spot in the middle of the lake - at about 6 mm, but visibility is real low there - less than a meter - and only if use a flashlight - so that affected my breath holding ability and I switched to a place with better visibility and scouted the borderline between open water and reed(?) that way I got two pikes - but I was braining one, I let go of my Belarussian-made gun and it sank! (the spear rod didn;t come out fully so it didn't go up as it usually does) - I spent about hour looking for it - but water got real murky after one dive in that spot so I could not find it. And the other gun failed me in the end too -- Omer Tempest - it would not shoot. I ended up being second to last amont those spearos that had fish, but there were quite a few that didn't get anything at all, including the guy who won the spearfishing cup in Anapa, Black Sea, in May. The winner got about 10 kilos of different fish, including dog fish, eels, as well as pikes and tenches. You can find some photos of scenary here. moscowhack - СелигерÑÐºÐ°Ñ ÐžÑ…Ð¾Ñ‚Ð¾Ð¿ÑŒÑнка
I made them using my phone cause my camera had drowned in Portugal. But I will post pics of fish as soon as my friends send me shots they took with their cameras.

 

[slingshaft]

Oh man, sorry to hear that you lost pneumo. If memory serves, that particular gun is a hand made custom design. Still, moment by moment, you moved through the event as a true competitor. Kudo's to you,your effort was with out a doubt "Against The Odds"

Kerry

 

[hyeparis]

Thank you, Slingshaft )))
It is indeed hand-made and custom-designed. I asked the maker - Yuri Kozlotsev - to shorten the barrel a bit so it would be easier to maneuver. It is a very comfy gun to hold - light and manueverable, but it is not precise (swings upward when you shoot) and breaks down regularly - usually o-rings made of rubber - get worn - one has to change them twice a year at least

 

[hyeparis]

I travelled to a river about 100 km northwest of my place on Saturday only to find water murky after a night of rain. I still went in with a pal of mine. The visibility was about 50-50 cm, and up to 80-1 meter if you look from bottom up. The first sunken tree I came across explode with clouds of mud as I crawled to it. The fish clearly saw/sensed me before I did. Nevertheless after about 40 minutes of exploring it I did stumble into what looked like a decent fish and shot from a close range. The range turned out to be too close - the spear didn't gain enough speed to pierce the fish and it fled. I found another one, or say there was some reflection from the peripheral part of the light produced by my flashlight at about 4 meters in that tree and shot from a longer range. When I got it out - it turned out to be kilo and a half chub, one of the biggest I ever speared. I then tried to find his/her mate as the big ones usually hang out in pairs, but could not - too much mud went up when I was retrievieng the trophy. So I swam downstream to this spot where chubs usually hang out. It is near the middle of the current - a tree sunken at about 5 meters - across half of the river and to the shore where there are also bushes hanging over the water. The trick is crawl along the bottom into the tree and then go up a bit and that's where they hang out. No luck though. I found a similar tree further down the river and in spite of poor visibility got another chub there, some roach fish and a bream. The chub and roachfish were hiding under a sunken woodcase right under the tree while the bream was staying in kelp and sort of bumped into it while crawling to that case - got lucky - the breams are very cautious and flee instantly. Unfortunately, I lost the bream and roachfish - probably as I was trying to get out in a rather thick bush and than had to scale a fence to get back to the road where the car was parked. I went back, but could not find it. See pics here.
moscowhack - СтрелÑем Рыбу Ð’ Мутной Воде

 

[MCerieiro]

Hey Mate, nice fish indeed! And great story...i really would love to dive in one of those Russian River´s one day :martial

And mate i must say you need big hairy "cojones" to dive with 50 cm visibility in a place with sunken trees and mud everywere! :blackeye

Cheers,
Marco

 

[hyeparis]

Thank you, Sir. I would take you to rivers with better visibility. It is just I could no go far so I went to the nearest river where I could find decent fish. However, after diving in the ocean, I still feel like I am watching a black and white movie. You might feel the same initially )))

 

[hyeparis]

Spearfishing in the Yaroslavl region

Left Moscow on Thursday evening for a 2-day and a half spearfishing trip. But first I had to endure 2 hours of traffic jams to get home and pick the equipment up. Set out at 11.00 pm, drove for about 2 hours along a two-lange road going North, passing by lorries, - lots of adrenaline, given the quality of the road and lack of roadside lights. Arrived at the spot near the Pleshcheev lake, from which the Nerl river flows, at about 1.00 pm, had some vodka and went to sleep in a tent. It was very humid, but I was in thermal overalls and fleece and slept in a good sleeping bag - that kept me warm and dry – mosquitos were real buggers – lots of them!
Woke up next morning (Friday), went right into the motoboat - the visibility was real good for our area - 3 meters - we could see breams take off as we went up the river to the lake. Speared a few breams as well as pikes and perches before coming back to find that a retired Naval aviation general and an Orthdox priest had already arribed to join our spearfishing/camping group. Both Friday and Saturday we enjoyed great sunny weather while it rained heavily in Moscow. On Saturday morning, my pal and the priest took off early to drive a car to a dam where they got two catfish (7 kilos each) while we stayed in the camp to cook and pack. See bad-quality pics (taken by an old mobile phone camera) of the pike and big bream grilled as well as local scenery here.
untitled picture
untitled picture
untitled picture

 

[MCerieiro]

Re: Spearfishing in the Yaroslavl region

Set out at 11.00 pm, drove for about 2 hours along a two-lange road going North, passing by lorries, - lots of adrenaline, given the quality of the road and lack of roadside lights.http://pics.livejournal.com/moscowhack/pic/00070g04/

Well a friend of mine always says that the beauty of this journeys is that we go out in a group of 4 (for example) and we never know how many of us will return :crutch

Nice fish's my friend and what a great weekend! what's best than going to the country and spending our days spearfishing with friends !?

That is what life is all about if you ask me!

Cheers,
Marco

 

[hyeparis]

It is indeed the best time of all - going wild with friends )))!