Anyone Interested in Lionfish hunting up North after the regularly scheduled dives?

[Mike]

Video is cool, no doubts its pretty awesome to watch that eel eat the lion fish being fed to it, but I'd caution against feeding lion fish to eels and other fish. We're changing marine life behavior with feedings. It's just one step of separation from chumming sharks if you think about it. There are more and more reports coming in from all over the Caribbean of aggressive eels, jacks, snappers etc, as of result of this new fish feeding of lion fish on dives.

Better to just dump the speared lion fish on the reef and let the fish there find the bodies instead of directly feeding them to them.

Just something to think about.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

mfinley, the current thinking is that we want the native fishes to develop a taste for them. I have not heard one incidence of aggressive behavior because of killing lionfish. Now I am speaking about the US coast here, and the lionfish are just as bad. Lots of lionfish shootouts, etc...Besides, speared lionfish then left for dead are not dead lionfish. I use the liontamer, and one little hole through them does not kill.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Will this be beach or boat diving??

 

[FuzzyNutz]

Hey, I found this "AcuSpear" that looks pretty simple to use, $50 and you can get a 5 prong tip for an additional $30. What do you think about something like that? If you think it's a good little device, would the 5 prong tip be worth it, or just slice the fish with a knife / cut off the spines with scissors?

 

[Texas Torpedo]

Will this be beach or boat diving??

It can be either, but to hit the really hot spots, and get better dive times, boat is the way to go. I plan on doing both.

 

[Cave Diver]

I have not heard one incidence of aggressive behavior because of killing lionfish.

There have been several recent threads here on the board about it. I personally think the suggestion about dumping and not hand feeding is a good one.

 

[Texas Torpedo]

Hey, I found this "AcuSpear" that looks pretty simple to use, $50 and you can get a 5 prong tip for an additional $30. What do you think about something like that? If you think it's a good little device, would the 5 prong tip be worth it, or just slice the fish with a knife / cut off the spines with scissors?

I've never seen or used one before but it looks pretty interesting and the price seems about right. My only concern might be in the longevity of the spring. I may try and pick one up before the trip to try it out.
As for the 5 prong tip.. I prefer paralyzer or trident tips especially when I'm going to keep them to eat and don't have a stringer to put them on. While they don't put up a fight like some fish once you hit them, they'll often thrash as time goes on if you don't kill them after you spear them. The 5 prong would probably work even better.

 

[FuzzyNutz]

Yeah, I was curious about the longevity of the spring too, but I figured it would serve the purpose of hunting maybe a few times on this trip and have a great learning curve - and for $50, it's pretty disposable.

I just watched some more vids of hunting lionfish, it seems most people have a regular tip and it's no problem. It'll probably be easier to hit 'em and scrape them off.

 

[Texas Torpedo]

With regard to feeding them off the tip of a spear.. Everyone has an opinion on the matter.. Personally, I don't think chumming or feeding sharks is a good idea, or stingrays for that matter.. But, nobody is trying to kill them, or generally us..
The first time I became aware that eels were even interested in eating lionfish was during a tournament when we were taking out so many of them we had them dragging on spare spears (didn't have a stringer).. While shooting other lionfish I felt a tug on my belt where I had the pole spear clipped off.. I turned around to see if I were hung up on something and two eels were all over my spear trying to get the lionfish off. At the end of the day they are going to eat them off the spear or off the sea floor. I don't think they care since their primary sense is smell rather than sights, etc.

Any way, while I am down for debating the merits of to feed, or not to feed, I'd prefer to do that in another thread and keep this one mostly about those interested in actually going out and spearing them. Those doing the hunting are welcome to kill and ditch (my preferred method - I don't like to waste time killing the next one), kill and keep for eating later, or feeding them to other marine life... (Including feeding the smaller ones to anemones = really cool )

 

[Hagan34]

I just watched some more vids of hunting lionfish, it seems most people have a regular tip and it's no problem. It'll probably be easier to hit 'em and scrape them off.

I watched a bunch of the videos last night and noticed the same. got pretty excited about this part of the trip.