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Spearing at Abri's Knob

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Abriapnea

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Jan 16, 2002
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Most days after work my mates and I like to go for a drift . As the wind normally picks up in the afternoons we usually don't go far , and a favourite spot is what my friends choose to call Abri's knob ;the reason being that it is quite small with prolific crustacean life . :eek:
At first the reef doesn't appear very promising , being rather extensive and flat . However , I have encountered sailfish and most species of smaller pelagics here over the years .
It starts at 20 m. and progressively shallows till 14 m. with nice boulders at 16 m. The sandy , deeper sections are good for green jobfish and king mackerel and as you drift onto the shallows schools of pickhandle barracuda and various kingfish / trevally appear . (the two kingies shown in thread "spearing photos " were taken here ).
As I have no particular interest in barracuda (average 8 - 12 kg.) I normally leave them to my mates and concentrate on the kingies .
 
On this occasion I made sure to accelerate slightly on our drift to reach the area of the pinnacle first , kingies being spooky I wanted to get there before guns started going off all over the place .;)
With a nice current flowing there were plenty baitfish balls working and with visibility only 8m. conditions were perfect for getting close to the kings . My technique is to spot some baitfish on the surface and dive down below them before they come into sight , then just drift up to them . Both jobfish and kings like to sit inside schools of bait where they are virtually invisible . As the mass of small fish approached they opened up around me and I could see a dark outline taking shape . It was an Ignobilis eyeing me warily . It turned side on for a good look before fleeing , presenting me with just the shot I was hoping for . The spear connected solidly through the shoulder exiting the gillplate opposite . Having missed the spine the fish immediately set off for the abundant caves in the area and I had my hands full pulling its head up everytime it tried to enter one . After a nice fight that left me sliding around in my sweat - filled wetsuit I managed to grab it , making sure to keep my hands away from the gill rakers .
 
The Iggie weighed in at 34kg's.
 

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MORE MORE MORE !!!!!!

How about the Great White close encounter and Marlin story.........Give me those cause I think they are rare, hard to find and awesome.

I already have a Coke & Popcorn standing by:D :D


OK OK, I have short but uninteresting Giant Trevally story while freediving. Can't tell you those on scuba, the thread specificaly stated Freediving. So everyone may bring out the puke bag....:t

Here goes............

There is this rocky area on an Island (which I used to scuba). Since I wanted to learn to freedive, I choose this spot because I know Giant Trevally likes all those places where the wave crash on rokcs and produce water bubbles. I was trying my friend Riffe Comp #2, a very small light weight like a Euro gun but made of teak. It is only +-114cm with 7mm shaft, double flopper screw on spearhead and 12mm x 2 rubber. The wave condition was just perfect, so decent surge but dive able. I look around the rocks, the grunts ( I think this is what they call it in English ) were swimming around the white water bubble. So I swan around again looking at every corner of the rocks. Then I came around to one area where the sea bed is not made of the usual soft coral common to this area, it was made of football size rocks, like those in the river. The rocks had shiny appearance to it, I suppose the repeated surge in and out of this place have made the rocks look so smooth. So I swam into this area, the water was only 3 meters deep and I was not even underwater, I was still snorkling the area looking for possible structure which the Trevaly likes. Visibility was no better than 5 meters, usual. I kept swimming deeper into this area and from a distance I saw some shiny thing moving around, I was trying to make it what they were and to my disbelief, I saw a school of Giant Trevallies, like 10 of them. Average 7 to 15 kg. They were like in a meeting, share holders meeting ???? He he he he. I don't see Giant Trevallies in a school unless I dive in wrecks and esspecialy oil rigs. To me this is a rare sight...poor me, I know.......

So I was trying to choose the biggest of them all and I know this 12mm x 2 band on 7mm shaft with this odd looking speartip won't give me better than 2.5 meters of potent shooting distance, maybe less. So, I tried getting closer. It so happened one of the smaller one like a 7kg size, broke out of the group and swam out of the area and was getting close to me. I aimed and shot the fish, but I aimed like how I aimed by bigger Riffe. The shaft hit the fish too high, instead of the spine which I aimed for. The fish went mad and started to hit the rocks trying to break free and it did. I can't imagine what happened untill I pulled the shaft and noticed that the speartip was gone. I even had 8mm shaft bent bad by this small size trevaly before but broken speartip.........no, not on this small size trevally.

I went back to the boat and told the owner. We inspected the spearhead and it did actualy break. This shitty spearhead was made by this friend in his own machine shop. It was made from three different parts, all threaded together and no Loc-Tite and boy........what a lousy design. The speartip undo itself into pieces when the fish went crazy......SHIT !!! I came back to the spot with my 124cm Riffe S#2 and it already became a grave yard. What a lousy story..........so gentlemen...you may use ur puke bag now:D :D


Fair exchange Abri ? Where can you get an original dumb but honest story like mine.......he he he. :duh


IYA
 
Hi Abri
very nice fish!
what will it take to get the GPS co-ords of your "knob"? rofl


iya, it must be terrible to loose a fish to someone els's bad workmanship. good luck for the next one.

Mark
 
Abri doesn't drink booze. So maybe two shot of Tequila will get you his GPS coordinate............but you must do that in Thailand !!! Wha aha ha.


If you give him three shot he might say :

He stared at you in the eye and say : Did I hear you want to know the GPS position of my "door knob" ? Look no further it is located just at 6'o clock...boy :D :D

Sorry just a joke .......wha ha ha ha.


IYA
 
Griff , if you ever plan a spearing trip to Sodwana ( have you ever been there ? ) , let me know and I'll tell you .;)
 
shot bru! i might be going soon. the varsity club do a lot of scubering there. i'm looking to do my skippers with them, so i get a free ride up there if i topman for them. what reef does it lie closest to? 1/4 mile, 2mile, 7, 9?
 
Boet , it's the northern end of 2 mile . The place you want to spear is 9 mile though , nice long drifts in 21m. water .Find the northern tip , jump in 30m. upcurrent . BIG couta this time of year . Jimmy Uys speared his previous W.R. here .
 
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Oh hey , did I forget to mention that BOTH my great white encounters in Sodwana happened in August ?rofl
 
hey IYA 7 kg fish is not bad. I haven`t seen that big fish underwater around here:waterwork . One more poor guy here.Iya how did you shoot higher? Is it fault of speartip or u just aim wrong?I always use speartip aim. Like your drowing remmeber? If i buy MT one day i wouldn`t able to use this aim?


Abri can you tell more about white encounter and sailfish.
 
Hi Murat,

The Competitor #2 I borrowed for that 7kg Trevaly was a no recoil gun and very thin 7mm shaft, so I actualy need not aim high ( I mean not as high as .... ) like my 4 bands Standard #2 at 4 bands shot as per my drawing.

Different shafts diameter and power band used on that particular shot will dictate the aiming...I mean this is what I found out. If u get the MT3, get extra 7mm Hawaiian shaft.........u will love it !!!
As I said, I been experimenting with 7mm...very nice for decent size fish...and very fast. Will update u on my experiment result if I have anything new for info sake.

If u have any navigation buoy in ur area in deeper water, maybe you need not go out too far...they might have some fish. Must experiment location, u will never know. Also study the fish migrating pattern and so on. Good hunter is not about accurate shots only, it is about knowing the local condition, geography and the science of the fish too. A local fishing magazine is a good source if there is one in ur country. I learn about locations from fishermen, both pro ones and traditional ones. Just last week, a friend's friend show me a video of him fishing in what I term as so-so water and it was hell a lot of Spanish Mackerel. He caught 12 fishes from 5 to 16 kg. At one time he caught 41 in a day fishing, average size 5 kg.........not bad at all !!! If the season comes, I want to tag along with him.

I read Spanish Mackerel roam clear water...it is not true in my area. I fished them in so-so waters often. I shot two in super lousy visibility only 1 mile from the coast..on a wreck. One became dinner and one got away. In fact if I averaged the sighting against shoot-able ratio between those in clearer water and 3 meters lousy visibility, I find my shooting chance higher in lousy water cause they are within my 4 meters favourite range. In 20 meters visibility.......too many just ran off before I can even aim.

Study ur area.

IYA
 
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Whites

While i was zapping on tv i noticed that one guy saying there is 2000 white sharks in south africa waters.Must like a scarry movie.I am not mentioning other bulls and tigers muhahaha:D .
Hey Abri are they under protection there?
 
Whites are . Spearing sharks is illegal , I think . A LOT get caught in the nets along swimming beaches , which is a bummer , still have plenty though .
Although I probably see a couple each time I spear , seldom have real hassles .
 
Murat , if a big shark truly attacks you , you're history :D However , if a particular shark gets really irritating , like a tiger constantly zooming past and stealing fish , shure I whack them .Better to leave and go elsewhere but sometimes there is no place else .:hmm
 
What if the Chinese did not create shark fin soup ?
What is the Japanese did not learn how to use shark liver oil for squalene capsules and their Mistubishi Zero fighter plane engine lubricant ?

I am also against shark killing but I sure wants the bad sharks to stay away from me................SHARK POD ????


IYA
 
Shark Pod

As i heard they repel also pelagics so not good for speros.:(
 
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