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Spearfishing with scuba
- Thread starter Vicksburg Diver
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Hank49
Contributor
I like to spearfish with a little rubber "boxing glove" on the tip...like the ones they use when training fighting cocks, so they don't hurt each other. Usually it just bounces off and the fish gives me a look like I'm stupid. I make the fish a little dizzy if I hit them in the head, but at least it doesn't leave a hole in their mouth.
cmburch
Contributor
Catch and Release
Set the hook and reel them in. Tear out eyes, gills, rip out throats, lips, gouged flesh, etc. I have seen women fishing H&L off the pier, reel in a nontarget fish, step on the fish and kick them back in so they will not take the bait again. Or people letting nontarget fish gasping on the dock so they will not catch them again.
If deep water fishing, in order to get one legal size fish upwards of 10 fish will die due to being bent.
Spearfishing - Release before you Catch
See the fish you want to eat and spear it. Simple. No wasted fish. Let the nontarget fish go before catching.
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Or perhaps what you are witnessing is an experienced spearo with excellent stalking skills.
Question for Vicksburg Diver. Do you eat fish?
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By the way, I have seen many, many, many photographers...or maybe I should say divers with cameras...damage/kill sea life, mostly in the form of coral. In fact, I have seen more individuals with cameras needlessly kill living sea creatures as I have guys with spearguns needlessly shooting fish they dont take. They do this with terrible buoyancy control, careless fin tips, and literally grabbing the reef to get a great shot. It seems pretty silly to me to destroy a sea fan or staghorn coral for a pretty pic of some banded shrimp or nudibranch.
However, I dont dislike what you enjoy or want to ban your passion. I guess the difference between you and me is I do not paint everyone with a camera with such a broad brush.
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Air On
Guest
True Environmentalists are hunters, on land or in the sea.
The origional environmentalist was Teddy Roosevelt!
He learned about the animals and how they lived, hunted them on their turf, had them mounted, and sent all the data and specimens back for educational use! He wasn't hunting for food...
If your not willing to kill it yourself, you shouldn't be allowed to eat it.
The native americans followed something similar to this. If your not willing to take responsibility for killing it, you don't respect it enough to deserve to eat it.
I don't spear fish, I haven't really wanted to... But reading posts like these, people telling me what my rights are and assuming that I'm not responsible enough to do something without destroying everything. Why don't you go stick your head back up your arse and practice snorkeling! This just makes me go out and do it, to protect my personal rights.
You don't like people spear fishing? I'm sure there is more then a few things people don't like about what you do too. The differnce is they understand its not their place to tell you what your allowed or not allowed to do.
Frankly scuba is a small sport with only a fraction of people doing it. Of this fraction an even smaller fraction are spear fishers. Only a fraction of these are living near water to even make a daily impact on the fish population. So your worried about a fraction of a fraction of a fraction?
You have got to be kidding me!
How about this just using random numbers...
Say out of 1000 people 10 of them scuba, 3 of these are spear fishers. 1 of these can actually hunt daily. You have issue with 1 person really... while 999 people are eating fish they didn't catch themselves. Who makes the largest impact again?
Lets look at this another way related to fishing... Its illegal for commercial boats to put a net across the mouth of a river and catch spawning salmon. Yet the local tribes are allowed to block the rivers and even install perminate fish traps stopping ALL the fish from spawning. They don't run the fish hatcheries, the commercial fishing industry does! So the commercial boats go around hoping to find a school of fish in deaper water. Yet the Tribes block the rivers and make sure nothing gets by... Then the commercial boats are taxed so the tribes can get a fee for the impact the commercial boats have made on their native fishing rights?
Why don't you go petition to make seafood illegal? Shut down the commercial canneries and fishing boats? Think that will help?
Now while that is making the real impact... you want to make it illegal for the private citizen who wants to try and fish for a salmon durring the run. Just because you see them while your playing in the river on vacation and it offends you?
Sorry I probably lost you... let me explain... Person fishing on the shore is similar to person spearfishing, But there are a lot fewer spearfishers by far!
How about this deal? Want to bye some carbon credits?
I'll sell you $100 in carbon credits for my reduction on environmental impact for every time I dive and I don't spearfish. I'll even pick up all the garbage I find and recycle it for free as a part of the deal. Any takers? I'll give you a payal account to send payments to if you want to make it easier.
The origional environmentalist was Teddy Roosevelt!
He learned about the animals and how they lived, hunted them on their turf, had them mounted, and sent all the data and specimens back for educational use! He wasn't hunting for food...
If your not willing to kill it yourself, you shouldn't be allowed to eat it.
The native americans followed something similar to this. If your not willing to take responsibility for killing it, you don't respect it enough to deserve to eat it.
I don't spear fish, I haven't really wanted to... But reading posts like these, people telling me what my rights are and assuming that I'm not responsible enough to do something without destroying everything. Why don't you go stick your head back up your arse and practice snorkeling! This just makes me go out and do it, to protect my personal rights.
You don't like people spear fishing? I'm sure there is more then a few things people don't like about what you do too. The differnce is they understand its not their place to tell you what your allowed or not allowed to do.
Frankly scuba is a small sport with only a fraction of people doing it. Of this fraction an even smaller fraction are spear fishers. Only a fraction of these are living near water to even make a daily impact on the fish population. So your worried about a fraction of a fraction of a fraction?
You have got to be kidding me!
How about this just using random numbers...
Say out of 1000 people 10 of them scuba, 3 of these are spear fishers. 1 of these can actually hunt daily. You have issue with 1 person really... while 999 people are eating fish they didn't catch themselves. Who makes the largest impact again?
Lets look at this another way related to fishing... Its illegal for commercial boats to put a net across the mouth of a river and catch spawning salmon. Yet the local tribes are allowed to block the rivers and even install perminate fish traps stopping ALL the fish from spawning. They don't run the fish hatcheries, the commercial fishing industry does! So the commercial boats go around hoping to find a school of fish in deaper water. Yet the Tribes block the rivers and make sure nothing gets by... Then the commercial boats are taxed so the tribes can get a fee for the impact the commercial boats have made on their native fishing rights?
Why don't you go petition to make seafood illegal? Shut down the commercial canneries and fishing boats? Think that will help?
Now while that is making the real impact... you want to make it illegal for the private citizen who wants to try and fish for a salmon durring the run. Just because you see them while your playing in the river on vacation and it offends you?
Sorry I probably lost you... let me explain... Person fishing on the shore is similar to person spearfishing, But there are a lot fewer spearfishers by far!
How about this deal? Want to bye some carbon credits?
I'll sell you $100 in carbon credits for my reduction on environmental impact for every time I dive and I don't spearfish. I'll even pick up all the garbage I find and recycle it for free as a part of the deal. Any takers? I'll give you a payal account to send payments to if you want to make it easier.
So because I don't hunt I can't be a real environmentalist? You have got to be kidding me!
Here in Hawaii there is only tradition, not laws. Since the main industry in Hawaii is tourism, spearing the pretty parrot fish in front of the sightseeing visitors is frowned on. Spearfishing is usually done at non tourist sites, while freediving. Spearo's may exist, but they stay well out of sight if they are smart.
I take pictures of fish and the locals buy them from me. They catch fish which I buy from them. The tourists spend a lot of money while they are here and we all get along.
Human ignorance is causing fish numbers to go down. More and more areas are no-take. Line and net fishing are both under increased scrutiny. In this day and age, do you really need to kill your dinner? The only lobster to be found are caught in the first 6 hours of the 6 month season. Farmed seafood is the future. Prawns are already there.
Cultures all over the world are changing the way things are done; change is inevitable.
Here in Hawaii there is only tradition, not laws. Since the main industry in Hawaii is tourism, spearing the pretty parrot fish in front of the sightseeing visitors is frowned on. Spearfishing is usually done at non tourist sites, while freediving. Spearo's may exist, but they stay well out of sight if they are smart.
I take pictures of fish and the locals buy them from me. They catch fish which I buy from them. The tourists spend a lot of money while they are here and we all get along.
Human ignorance is causing fish numbers to go down. More and more areas are no-take. Line and net fishing are both under increased scrutiny. In this day and age, do you really need to kill your dinner? The only lobster to be found are caught in the first 6 hours of the 6 month season. Farmed seafood is the future. Prawns are already there.
Cultures all over the world are changing the way things are done; change is inevitable.
cmburch
Contributor
Link to DLNR
Hawaii Fishing Regulations
It may be best to actually know something about the laws as well as the tradition.
Go to SpearBoard for Hawaii Hawaiian Islands - Spearboard Spearfishing Community
For a less biased view - what is actually going on with Hawaiian spearfishing.
Hawaii Fishing Regulations
It may be best to actually know something about the laws as well as the tradition.
Go to SpearBoard for Hawaii Hawaiian Islands - Spearboard Spearfishing Community
For a less biased view - what is actually going on with Hawaiian spearfishing.
im22sniper
Guest
In this day and age, do you really need to kill your dinner????? 
halemano, this statement is so rediculous, I dont know where to start, the rest of your argument was good , "for your situation". This statement makes you sound like one of the tree huggers who would rather be cowards and have someone else kill your food for you. Take the responsibility and supply whatever portion of your food you can supply for yourself. The commercial fishing industry is raping the ocean for people like you and the Hollywood enviro wacko's. I love a good ribeye, but I cant raise my own cow, therefore I will buy a steak from the store. If you cant fish because you live in Nebraska, but like to eat fish, thats fine, buy it. Its the people that pass judgement on us that do hunt and fish for the pleasure of it, and eat what we harvest, that make me so angry. We are the true enviromentalist. We are the true conservationists. We harvest only what we need and help to keep nature in balance. Go ahead a take all the pictures of the pretty little fish you want but Im going to put a hole in the side of that pretty little fish and eat him. All of you that want to make a difference in the ocean enviroment, go after the commercial industry, not the recreational spearos.
Mister Wango Tango for Prez.
halemano, this statement is so rediculous, I dont know where to start, the rest of your argument was good , "for your situation". This statement makes you sound like one of the tree huggers who would rather be cowards and have someone else kill your food for you. Take the responsibility and supply whatever portion of your food you can supply for yourself. The commercial fishing industry is raping the ocean for people like you and the Hollywood enviro wacko's. I love a good ribeye, but I cant raise my own cow, therefore I will buy a steak from the store. If you cant fish because you live in Nebraska, but like to eat fish, thats fine, buy it. Its the people that pass judgement on us that do hunt and fish for the pleasure of it, and eat what we harvest, that make me so angry. We are the true enviromentalist. We are the true conservationists. We harvest only what we need and help to keep nature in balance. Go ahead a take all the pictures of the pretty little fish you want but Im going to put a hole in the side of that pretty little fish and eat him. All of you that want to make a difference in the ocean enviroment, go after the commercial industry, not the recreational spearos.
Mister Wango Tango for Prez.
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Several of you, in your haste to brand me as some "tree hugger", "Nemo Hugger", "Enviromental Whacko" obviously misread my first post. I am not against spearfishing. In fact, in a rebutal to one of you, I even said I had spearfished using scuba. My point was, and is, what do you think of the "sporting issue" to spearfish with scuba compared to free diving? Personally, ( and I said this earlier ) I no longer spearfish with scuba.
I did not intend for this to turn into some asault on my "beliefs" ( or yours) nor some treatsie on fishing............just a simple question. I appreciate the interest and some of the replies. Some of you need to get a grip though.
I did not intend for this to turn into some asault on my "beliefs" ( or yours) nor some treatsie on fishing............just a simple question. I appreciate the interest and some of the replies. Some of you need to get a grip though.
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