Noodling fish

[SnpperWhisperer]

I got out for a spear in the weekend down here. Our first day we did a 'yak mission. It was not very successful apart from a feed of butterfish, but was a good hard day's diving anyway. Here's my mate Jared on his boat...
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/reidfish/47200003sm.jpg

The next day I headed to Cuvier with Sarah and her brother Tim and Aussie visitor Darren, because our mate Pete had had such a great day there on Saturday shooting some big snapper. The weather was totally flat calm.

I was keen to get a kingy to try out a new pole spear. On arriving, there were kahawai (small schoolfish) all around the eastern point which were all chewed up - the most chewed up I've ever seen. One reasonable kingy was hanging with them in the shallows but he bolted as I dived. In 20m vis (and 21 degrees) I swam to the nearby point where a kingy suddenly appeared in front of me. I was using one of Gary Fisher's long pole spears (about 9'4", fibregalss stock, with a stainless tip section and one of his slip tips). I loaded up and dived, with the fish coming in close enough for a good shot in the middle. The slip tip toggled beautifully, but did not slow the fish down any as he charged off into the depths. There were some larger ones (25kg+) that were nosing around the speared fish.

After five minutes of hard work, I had my 12.5 kg (27 lb) kingy at hand and subdued. The spear was toast, however . It was bent at a 60 degree angle in the middle of the stainless tip section. The slip-tip was fine, but the stainless section is not up to scratch. I can bend it back OK, but it's a bit noodle like. Here's the fish (after straightening the spear):
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/reidfish/47200013sm.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/reidfish/47200014sm.jpg

We only had a few hard luck stories on the snapper for some reason, but there were a few other fish speared.
We loaded up on some Paua (Abalone) which is a rare treat for us down here due to their scarcity around the inshore islands, and headed back on flat calm seas.

[kjflyfish]

Awesome! I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the tip was bent - is the slip tip cable too short to allow the shaft section to exit? Also, are you using a floatline or did you just hang on? I would be interested to get that spear, but my dealings with Gary lately have been less than ideal.

[mnguy]

Awesome! I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the tip was bent - is the slip tip cable too short to allow the shaft section to exit? Also, are you using a floatline or did you just hang on? I would be interested to get that spear, but my dealings with Gary lately have been less than ideal.

If it got to the bottom, it could've put itself in a crack and pulled down, with the stainless adapter tip on one side of the crack edge and the rest of the pole on another edge. Lord knows I had a halibut bend my aluminum pole in much the same manner while stuck to a 5 prong rake tip. It dragged me along until it was able to put my pole on the edge of a boulder and power downwards, giving my pole about 45 degrees of permanent bend.

Nice kingy at any rate there Snpper!

[SnpperWhisperer]

Not sure exactly how it happened. It would have happened at a depth of over 20 m when the fish took most of my float line down. My float line is clipped straight to the rubber. The fish went over the front of the reef into the current. Came back up bent as a bent thing. The steel is soft so it woul not have taken much.

[takowill]

Very nice.

[carsonwild]

Hey SnpperWhisperer have you using a slip tip that is only connected to the float line and not to the polespear.
I am going to try this my next trip out and see if it works.
I was thinking if I had it done this was i would still have my polespear with me if i need it to defend my self from greysuit if I need to.
Plus I could have a spare tip and rig with me for my Inflatble carter float.:thumps:
Carson

[SnpperWhisperer]

Haven't tried it direct to the float line, mine have been attached to the spear. I don't like the idea of having the hassle of holding the spear line as well, which you would have to do with a direct connection. We don't have much real shark trouble down here, so that's not a factor for me.

[OceanEd]

Carson:

You can attach the slip tip directly to the float line. Just be sure you rig it in a way so that the float line does not act as a drag on the pole when you are shooting. Otherwise it will severly limit your range.

Snpper:

I am constantly amazed the how big fish can bend pole spears. I use some big pole spears with stainless shafts in the front end that have larger diameters that yours, and they still bend with enough lateral force from big fish. One way to solve this is to have a pole spear where you can replace the stainless "front end" easily once you have bent it enough times that you really can't use it any more.

This is what Aaron Crist does with his pole spears. The Manny Puig does this also.

Nice fish by the way.

[SnpperWhisperer]

A quck update - we had a local competition this past weekend at the Hen & Chickens Island group, near Whangarei in Northland.
Ours are all swim comp's, 6 hours straight and no boats. Divers swim in pairs with a single float between them, one long line and one short line, divers unclip and swap lines after each dive.
My buddy was using his Kawabunga 3 prong, which is really good for most of the reef fish allowed in the comp, and I was using my Manny Puig spear, which is good in case of kingfish, large snapper, and Kahawai (a fast mackeral-like fish of about 2 kg+).
Despite a rough forecast and a bit of a chop getting there in 20 knot winds in a 5 metre boat, the vis was lovely, about 15 - 18 metres, and the water was a warm 21 degrees C. This is just about as good as it gets in this spot.
We had a good day, getting 11 fish and only missing out on getting another kahawai because they were hanging out of range most of the time. It was nice to be diving with my buddy Pete again, as he has been unable to swim with me the last few events due to a couple of unlucky accidents. Pete did great with the kawabunga, getting some good fish up to about 3 or 4 kg, and hitting everything he had to. I missed a porae, but Pete got 2 anyway, and he got 2 butterfish. I shot the kahawai and a couple of small snappers, and we both got a john dory and blue maomao each. We were pretty stoked, and were hoping for a boarfish or another kahawai, but it just didn't happen. Like most divers, we got to see a nice bronze whaler on the way back cruising off teh point where peopel had been chumming all day; very cool.
We were hoped that we'd do well, and at the weigh-in there were a 2 other teams with 11 fish, several with 12, and pairs with 13 and 15 fish. After all the counting was done, we were 7th out of I think 30 pairs. We were happy enough with that, as we felt we dived well, and the guys who did better are much better divers than us so they deserved it! This event was large for our standards, with a good field of divers. Of course we were the only ones using pole spears as usual, but in the end it only cost us one fish. We were stoked.