• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Texas -> Australia/Pacific Islands

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.

mlutz95

New Member
Oct 27, 2017
2
0
1
31
Howdy folks! My name is Mark, and I am from Houston, Texas. My brother and I grew up offshore fishing the Texas coast for billfish and other pelagics, but recently have gotten addicted to spearfishing in the last 6 months diving in the Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas. Our work schedules have permitted us to have about 4 weeks free in June/July 2018, so we are wanting to make a trip to Australia/some of the Pacific Islands for the sole purpose of spearfishing. Neither of us have been and are doing our very best to make the most of a trip over there!

Like I mentioned, we are experienced when it comes to any kind of saltwater/offshore excursion, but we are relatively new to free diving. On our most recent trip, we were only comfortably diving 20-30 feet (~5-10 meters).

I am hoping to gather as much information as possible from the DB community regarding how to make the most of our trip! We are looking at this as essentially a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so no location is too remote. What areas in June/July do you think would be ideal for a trip like this?

Australia:
-Darwin: seems like a great place to look into. Any experience from the community here?
-Cairns: is most of the reef open to spearfish nowadays?
-Perth: thoughts?? active spearfish community here?
-Exmouth: same as above
-Any other places that will be warm enough/shallow enough for us to dive?

Pacific:
-Palau: any experience here? We have reached out to one of the highly recommended spearos there.
-Fiji, Samoa: recognize these might be overrun with tourists, but figured worth throwing out there.
-I know there are a thousand more islands...any recommendations?

Any other areas we should be considering??

Any advice whatsoever will be tremendously appreciated! Cheers!!!

-Mark


Pics below of some of our past catches (rod and reel):
sword1.jpg
yf1.jpg
yf2.jpg
blue.jpg
sword2.jpg
 
Lots of cairns reefs are available for spear fishing , see the Great Barrier Reef marine park authority for maps of green zones and limited fishing zones, bag and size limits Queensland government recreational fishing guide app can help you stay on the right side of the law
 
June/July is winter is Australia & not the best time of year for big warm water fish. There is tuna of Southern Aust but very hit & miss. I'm planning a trip out of Cairns in July ATM, but its windy at that time of year so getting out into the Coral Sea isn't really going to be an option unless the forcast is excellent. Most likely we will head north into the "ribbon reefs" for several days & concentrate on feef fish rather than big pelagics. I will be back there again in Oct & Nov to do the Coral Sea & specifically target Dogtooth tuna. November is the best month for a window weather wise & most fishes are spawning then, so they form large aggregations. Depth wise, 20m is max that you will need for both reef & pelagics in this part of the world, dont go with any group which talks about needing more than this, its a pretty goo indication of a lack of actual experience IMO. As for Darwin, its the dry season then & the waether will be the best it ever gets, so too will be the visibility, maybe 6m max. Perth is in winter, So is Sydney to the east & don't even think about Melbourne. My advice is if you are planning a trip to this part of the world specifically to target trophy fish then you need to get here when the fish are here. that is November. Also get yourself onto a livaboard trip which is a minimum 8 days with experienced spearo's, ones who have done way more than three or four trips out there & who are successful. How are you with sharks? Lots of sharks? We typically land about a third of the tuna we shoot in the Coral Sea, but with sharks becomming much more abundant the odds are getting lower. After my last trip I was still blue for a month after being bullied several times by whalers & silver vee's from trying to keep my fish. There is experience & then there is "experience".;)(y)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Camospearo
June/July is winter is Australia & not the best time of year for big warm water fish. There is tuna of Southern Aust but very hit & miss. I'm planning a trip out of Cairns in July ATM, but its windy at that time of year so getting out into the Coral Sea isn't really going to be an option unless the forcast is excellent. Most likely we will head north into the "ribbon reefs" for several days & concentrate on feef fish rather than big pelagics. I will be back there again in Oct & Nov to do the Coral Sea & specifically target Dogtooth tuna. November is the best month for a window weather wise & most fishes are spawning then, so they form large aggregations. Depth wise, 20m is max that you will need for both reef & pelagics in this part of the world, dont go with any group which talks about needing more than this, its a pretty goo indication of a lack of actual experience IMO. As for Darwin, its the dry season then & the waether will be the best it ever gets, so too will be the visibility, maybe 6m max. Perth is in winter, So is Sydney to the east & don't even think about Melbourne. My advice is if you are planning a trip to this part of the world specifically to target trophy fish then you need to get here when the fish are here. that is November. Also get yourself onto a livaboard trip which is a minimum 8 days with experienced spearo's, ones who have done way more than three or four trips out there & who are successful. How are you with sharks? Lots of sharks? We typically land about a third of the tuna we shoot in the Coral Sea, but with sharks becomming much more abundant the odds are getting lower. After my last trip I was still blue for a month after being bullied several times by whalers & silver vee's from trying to keep my fish. There is experience & then there is "experience".;)(y)

sharkey- I really appreciate the insight here! This is a lot of very helpful information. I read you loud and clear on the timing of the trip...unfortunately June/July is the only timeframe that we can get enough time off to head to that side of the world. So with that being said, we are trying to make the most of it. Would there be a better way to use our time than trying to spearfish in Northern Australia (thinking Darwin, Cairns)? Would it be significantly more worthwhile to check out some areas in Indonesia instead? Thanks again for the help, definitely hard to figure out another side of the world sitting at a computer haha
 
Hey Mark,
Sounds like a hell of a trip... Wish I could get the time off to join ya guys! And nice fish in those pics!(y) On a side note if you guys wanna take a class and do some training, maybe go shoot some fish?!? I'm a freedive instructor in Galveston who likes to spearfish :sneaky:. Looks like the weather's starting to clean up a little bit!
 
Sharkey! I agree. Your point is very well about best time for big warm water fish. I pick your every point but I have no idea about it. I am excited when see the captured of mlutz. It a amazing but I think may be some time is dangerous for visitors. Can you guide me please about the best way to catch for spearfishing, billfish and pelagics.
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2024 deeperblue.net limited.

DeeperBlue.com is the World's Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving, Ocean Advocacy and Diving Travel.

We've been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

ADVERT