BENEATH THE SURFACE | By Erin Magee
Learning the ropes of spearfishing while freediving
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Posted - Friday, October 23, 2009 10:24 AM EDT
Practicing using a long spear gun in a pool during a class on spearfishing techniques for freediving.
One of my earliest childhood memories is of fishing with my grandfather up in Minnesota. We used to go out on the lake in summers, sit in his little boat, drop a line over the side and wait to see what bit. I’d hold the fishing pole, pretend I knew what I was doing and try to look like I was focusing on getting fish, when I was usually just concentrating on trying not to scratch the 30 or so mosquito bites that covered my legs. Mosquitoes in Minnesota during the summer are a whole different breed of vicious.
So that was where fishing began for me. I don’t remember catching anything back then, though if you asked my grandfather he’d probably stretch his arms out and tell you that his granddaughter caught one “this big!”
Since then my fishing has evolved to the in-water sport of spearfishing. In the two years or so since I first learned how to load a speargun, I’ve learned a lot. I learned how to aim, how to pick out a big mangrove snapper or mutton, and I’d occasionally come home with dinner. I knew I was no pro, but I thought I was doing a-okay for myself.
Someone once told me, “It’s not your fault you don’t know what you don’t know.” That holds very true with my knowledge of spearing. It’s true, I was coming home with dinner, but I didn’t realize how much extra work I was doing for meager results. I didn’t realize I was doing things that scared fish off instead of luring them in.
Expert advice
I got an eye-opener a couple weeks ago when I took a spearfishing class taught by Sheri Daye and Daryl Wong, two major celebrities within the world of “spearos.” Sheri Day is the host of Speargun Hunter, a television show on the Outdoor Channel, and Daryl Wong is the sole manufacturer of the extremely popular custom Wong Guns.
They teamed up with Performance Freediving International, the company I work for, to develop a course on freediving spearfishing that combines skill and tactical instruction with the safety techniques PFI holds dear. I jumped on the chance to take the course from such knowledgeable teachers.
I’d never gone through any formal spearfishing training before, and I was amazed at the amount of information that was new to me.
During the first day of the course, I realized I was doing just about everything I could to make spearing harder for myself (Afterward I was joking that I was just trying to be sporting...). I used a 36-inch gun with a shock cord and heavy double-barbed tip. By the end of the course I was using Sheri’s gun (a Wong Gun) that was about 60 inches, had an attached reel and a slim shaft with a permanent single-barb tip, which was far more streamlined.
My accuracy with the new gun improved. I found that I didn’t have to aim high anymore — that my shaft went directly towards my target, without dropping as it moved through the water. My range also vastly increased.
I even learned how to properly chest load a big gun like that, though I’ll admit not without some difficulty! Using techniques Sheri showed me, I was able to load the 60-inch gun easier than I used to load my 36-inch gun. I learned that it’s not about strength as much as it is technique.
I also learned a lot about line safety. In freediving spearing, spearos utilize reels and lines with attached floats more often than in scuba. But since you’ve only got one breath to get that fish and get back to the surface, it’s important to know how to avoid tangling in your own line, or how to avoid fish wrapping your line around you. They showed me how to toss my line behind me to avoid extra line between the fish and my body, but they also stressed the importance of keeping a knife handy, just in case.
And even though the best part of the class was in the water, the lectures were incredible. Sheri discussed fish behavior distinctive to each different species of fish, how to approach these behaviors to use them to your advantage and even how to attract the fish to you instead chasing them, which almost never works.
Using good judgment
But there was also balance to the class. They discussed sustainability, using good judgment to decide what to shoot and what to let pass by. The biggest fish may seem like the best catch, but sometimes it’s best to let that rare big fish go to help populate the water for future spearfishing trips. They showed students that the discerning hunter is often better than one with a bigger haul.
I have to say though, my favorite part of the course, hands down, was putting what we learned into practice. The last day Sheri and Daryl took us out to the ocean and gave us specific tips to improve our technique. I’d dive down, lay on the sand, watch the fish come to me and decide whether or not to take a shot.
In the end I didn’t even pull the trigger, but now that I know what I’m doing, I don’t feel like I’m in any rush. I’ll just let the fish come to me from now on.
