Spearing in Italy (freshwater)

[spaghetti]

Re: Spearing in Italy

..and here I go. I don't have any habit to take pictures of my catches, especially from the lake. But I asked friends and relatives to peek in all cabinets and this is what I found. All fish caught in lake Garda.
1) Winter black bass (caught 3 weeks ago) 1960 grams, shot with my Mares Medisten 8 meters deep
2) Summer black bass shot with my Comanche 60 in just 2 meters. That was pretty big!
3) Summer carp, shot without intention: it appeared from the murk and my finger pulled the trigger without judgement. The fish has been eaten anyway

I'm particularily happy with the catch in pic 2. This is an italo-american one, same as John Travolta and Danny De Vito (just slightly bigger than Danny...). Buggers like this one have a latin name (micropterus salmoides) and an American descent. They were brought to Italy in 1909. Since then they colonized italian rivers, lakes and ponds all along from the Alps to Sicily. In some provinces they are still called "American bass" (branzino americano), as well as Largemouth (boccalone).
This is one of the biggest I've caught in Lake Garda.
When I got this one, it was soon after the tench breeding season. Tench, a fat european freshwater fish, make love during late spring/early summer in shallow weedy bottoms, and many species of fish soon rush to the area trying to feed with eggs and newborn baby tench: gizzards, bluegill, perch and black bass (i.e. the bloodiest bastards in the freshwater environment) run in numbers to the feeding frenzy.
There is a small beach near my parents' old house, the bottom starts shallow with stones and then goes slowly deeper upon a strange, soft muddy sand, pointed with big boulders and bushes of a high leafy weed that looks like kelp.
I had noticed a big, white, isolated boulder surrounded by kelp bushes and flat sand all around. That could be the ideal hiding for the schools of newborn tench, and where's the prey, there's the prowler.
I swam stealthily till I reached some 10 meters away from the boulder, then ventilated, spit the snorkel and went down. I swam belly-crawly (no fin kicking, just using my left hand) and made a wide loop, then I slowly tightened my trajectory and turned around the boulder. The fish was just behind: he was fat! The shot of the Comanche 60 was slightly high behind the gills, did not crack the spine. The reaction of the fish was strong, pulling very hard, but didn't last for long, luckily.
It ended roasted in the oven with chips, with the compliments of the local Tench population.

 

[foxfish]

Re: Spearing in Italy

Great insight to freshwater spearing, thanks for the pics but I think you should consider taking more even if it only for our benefit.
You do look nice & healthy too

 

[MaxKuper]

Re: Spearing in Italy

Hi to everybody, I am planning to spend one week at Como Lake in early July. Has anyone heard anything of spearfishing in this lake? I would really appreciate to get some info about viz, hunting depths, water temperature and the best spots for spearfishing in the Como Lake area. Thanx in advance

 

[spaghetti]

Re: Spearing in Italy

Hi Max.
For regulations they are the same apllying to lake Garda. You need a license (cheap), no scuba, no night hunting, float or buoy necessary, et cetera as specified for Lake Garda.
The visibility is quite short average, you will hunt with a 75cm bandgun and a short pneumatic. There are much more (and easier) tench in lake Como than in lake Garda, while pike and bass are quite rarely spotted. Another fish that you will quite probably find is the Walleye (it looks like between a pike and a perch). You will hunt between 0-15meters, better on kelp beds.
Now, important:
spearfishing is legal only in SOME limited spots.
Here's the the names of places where it's legal on lake Como (you will check them on any local map that's enough detailed):

In the Province of Como:

1- In the town of Musso: all the shoreline within the town limits
2- In the Town of San Siro: from Punta Gaeta to the uotput of the Serio river
3: In the town of Bellagio: from the boat dock at "Punta Spartivento" to the square at Pescallo village.
4 In the towns of Lenno and Tremezzo: from the Azzano boat dock to Balbianello
5-In the towns of Torno and Faggeto Lario: from the boat dock "Pliniana" to the Cantiere Mostes shipyard at Faggeto Lario.
6- In the towns of Cernobbio and Moltrasio: from teh stairway at punta di Pizzo to Villa Fontanelle.

As you see there's not much room for our sport in that Como lake, but anyway if you plan a family trip right there, it's worth bringing your gear and give it a try.


In the Province of Lecco

1- From the port of Parè to Malgrate
2- From Punta di Piona direction south till the warning plates
3- Town of Abadia Lariana Lariana; in a place called Prandello, from a discoteque called Orsa Maggiore direction north to the ex powerplant;

 

[MaxKuper]

2 Spaghetti,

thank you very much, really appreciate your help. One more question, are there any shops which sell spearfishing gear? that would be very helpful.
Thank you in advance.
Max

 

[spaghetti]

2 Spaghetti,

thank you very much, really appreciate your help. One more question, are there any shops which sell spearfishing gear? that would be very helpful.
Thank you in advance.
Max

okay I'll tell you, but it would help me if you told me where exaclty on lake Como you're planning to settle. It would be cruel of me to suggest you to drive two hours to reach the shop, you know.
For now, lake Como is not exaclty my neck of the woods.
The best specialized shops are in the Milan area.
The very good specialized store called Pepposub is near the highway from Como to Milan
Dove Siamo | Peppo Sub
The very good specialized store Maremania is at Novate Milanese, north of Milan
MAREMANIA TUTTO PER LA SUBACQUEA E LA PESCA IN APNEA Come raggiungerci
a good shop, Sportissimo is in the center of Milan:
Sportissimo Milano - negozio di subacquea a Milano - e-commerce - online

Just consider that if you drive down to Milan it's a bit of a mess with traffic and roads, being that a huge, messy and ugly urban metropolitan area.
I don't know of specalized shops right on the lake. But I remember that in Mandello del Lario, which is a beautiful towns on lake Como, there's a big sports gear outlet store, named "Longoni Sport", with a decent section dedicated to diving gear. So to resume, before you venture driving down to Milan, check Longoni Sport at Mandello del Lario and see if you find there what you're looking for.
Have a nice trip and please feel free to ask for more info

 

[fleshy]

Nice carp spaghetti! The three main differences I think between fresh and saltwater shooting are these:

1. You don't need as much weight in freshwater.
2. Sitting on the bottom and waiting for fish, or attempting to "lure" fish in rarely works. Where I live we find a school, and then several people dive the deep end of the school and blow bubbles to keep them from all scattering, then the shooter dives down, and takes the shot.
3. Freshwater shooting is usually shallower, but not necessarily, because some people spear on wrecks and the such in the great lakes, and other very deep lakes.

Just because it seems simpler doesn't mean its any less challenging. It just has its own unique challenges to offer. Pastor, we need to get you out here for some good old fashioned Wisconsin spearfishing.

 

[spaghetti]

Nice carp spaghetti! The three main differences I think between fresh and saltwater shooting are these:
1. You don't need as much weight in freshwater.
2. Sitting on the bottom and waiting for fish, or attempting to "lure" fish in rarely works.
3. Freshwater shooting is usually shallower, but not necessarily, because some people spear on wrecks and the such in the great lakes, and other very deep lakes.
Just because it seems simpler doesn't mean its any less challenging. It just has its own unique challenges to offer.

Thanks. But the largemouth tasted much better!
For the technique thoughts, I can suscribe what you said as general concepts. But of course there would be so much more to say.
Talking for our lakes, it much depends on season, type of bottom and fish targeted.
Every fish here requires a different technique for each season. For example, pikes are very deep in the winter (30 meters or deeper), quite shallow in mid spring (5-8 meters), quite deep in summer (15-30 meters) and still quite shallow at the end of summer/early fall.
They (pikes) never come close with the aspetto technique (while perch, tench and largemouth do sometimes: as you said, it rarely works): in any case you must be sleek and quiet in your approach, and quick to shoot or they will soon give a tail blow and disappear in a cloud of mud: poff! While when they're deep, you must combine the so called dive-bombing technique with agguato. It's not for everyone to freedive 30 meters in 6 or 7°C with zero visibility, and perform a clever agguato. I know some guys who enjoy a lot this type of hunting, and I did it myself sometimes, but personally I'm growing too old for that...
Ok I'm making it too long, but in short what I mean is that we use a lot of different specialized techniques. Including: agguato on kelp beds (summer/fall) and rock beds (winter/early spring), seizing fish through kelp beds, eels in the mud (smmer), eels in the micro-algae that flourish in spring covering the bottom (spring), eels into rocks (fall/winter), burbots under stones (summer), et cetera et cetera et cetera.

 

[fleshy]

There is SO much more to say, and obviously there are even differences between Europe and north America as far as hunting styles are concerned.
Like you probably hadn't heard of the bubble technique. Thats something Im pretty sure I thought up. It occurred to me while watching "Blue Planet" that killer whales herded fish with bubbles. I also knew that fish would be scared off by bubbles from our snorkels, so I devised this technique to keep large schools of fish in a group. This helped a TON in deep lakes with fast moving fish. The fish were also less scared it seemed by being circled by all the divers, than seeing one, big, consolidated group of divers. If the bottom is somewhat sturdy, you can "play dead" here and with certain kinds of camouflage (my beuchat green mundial works AWESOME) the fish will just forget that threats can come from below, and just start to swim right over you! Oh well, like you I am making this too long, I could talk forever.

 

[Kinky]

Dear Spaghetti,

You have a lot of info about spearfishing on the lake. I usually go to Ponti sul Mincio a little town in the countryside close to Peschiera del Garda.

I would like to try to spearfishing overthere.

I think that the best period to do that should be the second half of September. Less boats. What do you think?

I read on Apnea Magazine that you can spearfish at 50mt from the beaches of Peschiera del Garda. Is it true?

 

[Aggelos1986]

Re: Spearing in Italy

For Diving-Kai83
you don't necessarily need a boat, there are many good spots near the shore all around the 160 kilometers of lake shoreline. Boat traffic and related dangers are a real issue especially in Summer, but if you come in april-may (which is the best season) the situation is acceptable.
If you arrive from Munich driving down the Brenner Pass, a place to go could be Malcesine, in the middle of the east coast: very beatiful town, big choice of hotels and accomodation for any budget. A beach called Navene is the most appreciated spot in malcesine: you enter water from a beach and the bottom is interesting with spots of sand, kelp, rocks, then it goes down pretty suddenly. In April you may be lucky enough to find some big pikes in shallow water. And if the weather will warm up this months it will also be plenty of eels and tench. If you go early in the morning at Navene beach, on weekends you might meet some local spearos and ask some tips to them.
To be honest I am more familiar with south western portion, from Sirmione to Manerba: more choice of different bottoms, but for you it would be one more hour to drive.
---
Bring on a 5 mil wetsuit, a 75cm bandgun (a 90 might be too long most of the times) and a short with 5 pronger for eels, a mask with wide field of vision rather than low volume: water is never crystal clear, and the deeper you go, the darker it gets.
---
I'm taking some days of holiday there on the first week of April. Make me a whistle if you come over: we could eventually go hunting together if possile to arrange.

Hello Spaghetti,

I see that this post is almost 15 years old, but I am currently staying on vacation in Italy, in… Manerba!!! We come here every year, and I would like to try on spear fishing the next 1.5 weeks Im still here. You said you know some spots it is allowed to go spearfishing, would you be willing to share them? I asked around in the area here, but everybody says you have to go far outside of the buoys (harbor) with a boat, but they also said they don’t really know about the laws and rules

Would love to go spearing in the beautifull waters here, there is a lot of also beautifull fish here!

 

[TimHouTX]

Hello Spaghetti,

I see that this post is almost 15 years old, but I am currently staying on vacation in Italy, in… Manerba!!! We come here every year, and I would like to try on spear fishing the next 1.5 weeks Im still here. You said you know some spots it is allowed to go spearfishing, would you be willing to share them? I asked around in the area here, but everybody says you have to go far outside of the buoys (harbor) with a boat, but they also said they don’t really know about the laws and rules

Would love to go spearing in the beautifull waters here, there is a lot of also beautifull fish here!

Hugely insightful thread but looks like Spaghetti hasn't been around since 2019 unfortunately