Spear Fishing the Good and Bad

[Dee]

A new club sounds good to me! We joined this one hoping to meet some local divers. The club has been going for 26 years with quite a few of the original members. But what we're dicovering is divers who like to party hardy and take cruises more than diving locally and a few good dive trips.

We've tried to facilitate some changes of the things we really don't agree with but haven't made any headway. I doubt we'll be involved with the club much longer. Maybe I'm just not a 'club' person, the cliques and arrogancies are too counter-productive for my taste.

You can be our leader since you started it, Natasha the travel officer, and I suppose we'll have to find a place for Don...

 

[Mario S Caner]

Dee,
As long as you have a leash and some tranquilizers, Don should be safe to have around... LOL!

As for the Dive club, consider it a done deal... as long as no one has any objections, I'll run with it... Let's pick a name... how about something like, ScubaCity Dive Club, or King Neptune Divers, or In2Deep Dive Club... it has a double meaning... as in deep diving is cool, and in over our heads... any opinions?

Mario

 

[Dee]

Are the tranquilizers for us, or for Don?

I want to know!

I like King Neptune Divers, he is sort of responsible and he does own the meeting room! And In2Deep Dive Club could have lots of meanings. Since I started diving I'm been in2deep in lots of ways! LOL. I like all your suggestions.

What about Narced Dive Nuts, or NDL Divers? I'm not really good at naming stuff!

 

[Mario S Caner]

Dee,
I'm sure we'll get lotsa good idea's when it comes to great name idea's... How bout I start a new thread for that.. let it go for a while... and then we'll deal with other details.. sound good?

Mario

 

[Dee]

Mario,

Sounds good to me!

 

[joewr]

A little late for this thread, but here goes. Look at the Jan. 2001 edition of Skin Diver magazine: it is the 50th anniversary number and contains a replica of edition #1. Number 1 was filled with photos of skin divers with speared fish! I think the ethic has changed in those 50 years. The 2001 issue has not one recent photo of a speared fish! The balance in nature requires that we "harvest" things in order to keep the population in control, but I am happy to have surface fishermen do that!

Whenever I hear this kind of discussion, I always think of a trip to Maui where we dove an area open to spearfishing and other areas that were closed to same. What a difference. In the spearfishing zone, the fish were far and few between and the ones that we encountered, kept their distance! In the no hunting zone, the fish were amplle and curious and very approachable.

I also think of Cozumel where I took a photo of 5 spiny lobsters on a shelf--I call it "The boys in the band"--and can not imagine that they would have been there if taking lobsters were allowed! So, we need to do responsible harvesting and responsible protecting. Scuba would be boring if we could only look at coral and sponges!

By the way I am not a card carrying environmentalist--I spent 30 years in the oil industry! I just think we need to go out of our ways to protect things that cannot protect themselves from us! The fiercest predator in the ocean--the Great White--is not protected in some places because we can wipe it out! And the oceans need them.

Joewr

 

[peter]

Thanks to all for the info . It would be strange to be able to spear on scuba knowing how the fish react to divers and free divers. Also interesting to see the different fish species. Some very similar by sight but not by name.
Lobsters just look tasty wherever they come from.
Thanks again.

 

[Thistle]

I am generally against this. It maight be because of a cultural pattern -not a lot of europeeans do that.

I might agree that if you do it in a reasonable way it might work. I am not a big fan for this kind of stuff like hunting etc. therefore my oppinion is not objective.

I was diving last year in Indonesia (precisely in Manado, northen part of the country). It was first time when I was being able to actually see with my own eyes how a bombed reef looks like. I never ever had that feeling of death, irreparable desaster. You can not imagine the feeling of despair the sight generated into my mind and soul. It looked like a tomb.
That's far worse than spearing and the funny thing is that verry little is done to prevent it. All that was happening in a natural reservation. I believe it is difficult to explain to the people that they shouldn't bombe the reef in order to catch some rare fishes that worth their income for one year.
What do you think about it?

 

[blueabysss]

Spearfishing should be on lung power only. Nothing you ever do will beat that experience. If you shoot it, you eat it. Otherwise you don't shoot it . Most freediving spearfishermen are staunch conservationists, but we do love fresh fish. yummm

 

[pops]

I've spent hundreds of hours freediving with a speargin and average maybe one good edible fish per three hours of hunting. Not exactly wasteful and pretty humane. Ever troll for big game fish? It's a huge rush to fight and land a marlin but I wouldn't care to be the fish.

The upside to all the freediving time is fast swimming and lotsa endurance. Downside is always holding breath with scuba eqpt.