Walter Shoal Spearfishing Expidition

I recently got back from out voyage to the Walter's Shoal 1250km South East of Durban. The took 4 days travel either way and we got caught up in some horrendous seas. When we eventually got there the vessel were were on called the Thomas B Davie did a quick servey of the area and generated a contour map of the southern portion of the reef.

Walter Shoal 1250km from Durban

The first day was rather rough but we still got some good Cape Tail, The biggest being 17kg. The conditions were not great and we spent the second of the 4 days at the shoal on board as the swell was up to 12m and the wind was pumping properly. We managed to get in the next day and Karl Maingard got a really good Cape Yellow Tail of over 25kg. But we had not found a really good spot, well not one with hundreds of fish at least.That afternoon the Boys from The Cape Niel Barnard and Jan Nel found a great spot, there were hundreds of Galapagos sharks and some good amberjack. Niel also shot a really big White Kingfish a kind of cross between an Amberjack and Kingfish and a Rubberlips.

Chris Coates 16kg Cape Tail & Karl Maingard 25kg Cape Yellow Tail

The spot furthermost south on the Shoal seemed to be the place and we headed there on the last morning. The conditions were the best we had had on the trip and we greeted by some nice clean water around 20m vis and 19 deg. There were loads of sharks and every time they came in so did the Tail and Amberjack.
We got a great mixed bag with some good Tropicals, Greater Amberjack and Cape Tail. Jeremy Williams got a good tropical of 16kg and a big Tail. Niel got a Tail of 17kg amongst some other good fish.

A good mixed bag of fish at the Walter Shoal

I had a really good day with a 16kg Amberjack, a 15kg Tail, a 12kg Tropical, and an 11.955kg White Kingfish. Bringing my PB's broken on the trip to 4 .... not too many trips you can achieve this!
The high light was realising that the White Kingfish (Psuedocaranx Dentex) was double the current IUSA world spearfishing record. We took care to measure and weigh the fish according to the rules and have applied for the record.

Pending IUSA World Spearfishing Record White Trevally 10.955kg - Chris Coates

We seriously only scratched the surface out there and I am sure there are even more records to be broken out there. Getting there is the only problem .....

Check out the full story: Spearfishing Expedition to Walter Shoal

Coatesman

World Record Dog Tooth Tuna

Pending World Record Dog Tooth Tuna 110kg - Tanzania - Cameron Kirkconnell

The World Record Dog Tooth Tuna Record was smashed twice in one day in Tanzania recently. Brad Thornbrough broke the record first while Cameron Kirkconnell was filming. Shortly later Cameron shot one slightly bigger. This is what Cameron had to say:

The fish was so big that despite having the chance for a head shot on him I changed my aim and shot him in the same place as the last really big one I’d landed knowing that the shot would hold and take out his propulsion. The fish was much much much bigger than I thought though. When I was on my way back to the surface I looked at Brad Thornbrough and spread my arms as wide as I could underwater to show him it was massive then hit the surface and he asked, ‘How big was it? World Record?’
At the time I said not that big but definitely over 150 lbs. When it came to the surface though we started flipping out and knew it was over the 200 lb mark.
On the beach the scale dropped to a staggering 243lbs shattering the old record (201lbs)
check out Cameron's blog for more.... Spearblog.Com

Who would have thought that a Dog Tooth Tuna over 100kg would ever be landed.... Bloody Amazing!

Coatesman

Xcel and Dive Sites Promo

Hey guys,

I just finished going through my new copy of Dive Sites an atlas from the guys at Map Studio. And I have been amazed at some of the detail on some of the reefs.

MapStudio's New Dive Site Atlas

I was particularly impressed when I found some reefs up north that are not that well known. So even tho this is a book aimed at the scuba diver its one that any spearo will appreciate and will make a good addition to their library.

Check out this detail of Elusive

Spearo DVD is running a promo for the local chaps and you can win a copy check out the Xcel & Dive Site Promo

See you in the water

Coatesman

One Fish in Deep

Deep World Wide Spearfishing Magazine

One fish Spearfishing Dvd has made it into the Deep World Wide Spearfishing magazine! This was one of the many strategic partnerships we have forged with guys around the world to promote the Spearfishing DVD and our future projects.

Here is the ad the Deep World Wide has run for us, the cool thing was that it has landed on page 4 in the mag. That's prime ad space!! Lets hope that there readers especially the Europeans start watching the dvd and the One Fish madness spreads there like wildfire like it is doing here at home.

One Fish ad on page 4!

I wonder how the guys will react to the Marlin shot being with a single rubber gun??? Especially when the trend these days overseas is big multiple rubber guns  ..like in the pic below.

Even a extra punt in the gear section ... nothing wrong!

Spearfishing Black Marlin Video

 

Watch the Video: Spearfishing Black Marlin

Here is the spearfishing promo on the Black Marlin we speared in the One Fish DVD. The response to this film has been amazing. This clip on Youtube got almost 1000 views in less than a day!

Have a look, pass it on to your mates and enjoy.

Coatesman

One Fish Premier a Mammoth Success

A full house at the One Fish Premier at the Catalina Theater in Durban

The One Fish Spearfishing DVD Premier in Durban on Saturday night was an overwhelming success. We packed out the Catalina theater and watched the film for the very first time. Watching the film with a whole crowd was awesome, the Oooes, Aahh's and laughter created a dynamic that was just insane.

Thenext stop is Cape Town on the 16th and we are already looking at other places for additional shows.
Contact Eckart eckartbenk@gmail.com to book for the Cape Town Premier.

A big thanks must go to all the guy and gals who made Saturday night a success ... there are just too many to list :-)

Coatesman

P.S check out the pics from the evening on Facebook

Best Sailfish Footage Ever Seen.

Sailfish Drama from Howard Hall on Vimeo.

Ok if you enjoyed the last video I put up. This one with the sailfish is going to make you flip your lid. ......probably even more than the Dogtooth Tuna. The quality of this footage is unbelievable, it was shot on a camera called a 'Red One' it film at 5x full high definition.

This clip called Sailfish Drama was captured at Isla Mujeres, Mexico in February 2010. Many saw the pics ot the sailfish from this footage, but this is just sooooo much better.


Coatesman

Dogtooth Tuna off Okinawa Japan

 

If you cant see this vid go to Dogtooth Tuna Okinawa

Its not often I get really excited, I mean to the point where the rest of my day becomes useless. Watching this clip of Dogtooth Tuna off an Aguni island Okinawa south of Japan just flipped me out ...properly!

Do yourself a disfavor and watch this clip it will blow you away!

Then when you are finished watching those Dogtooth Tuna watch these ones - More Doggies

Ok now I should have successfuly screwed up your day aswell.

Coatesman

One Fish Spearfishing DVD Premier goes to Cape Town

Email : eckartbenk@gmail.com to book your spot

After the overwhelming response from the Durban guys with the One Fish Durban Premier, and all the requests from the Cape Town crew. We have decided to run an evening in Cape Town!

What has made this evening even more special is that the guys from
Chris Benz Dive Watches have given us a dive watch worth R5300 to give away on the night!!!! Rob Allen our main sponsors throughout the project (as always ..thanks guys) will also give a way a gun to a lucky viewer.

The tickets are R75 each and the will be snacks served and a cash bar. I heard the Cape guys know how to throw a jol???

Here is the addie and it starts at 8pm
Labia Theater

68 orange Street

Cape Town, South Africa

For more info contact Eckart ...the man on the ground in CPT
Cell No 082 577 9162 or eMail: eckartbenk@gmail.com

Hope to see you there

Coatesman

Vidal the place to go Spearfishing

Stefan Pretorius 25kg Couta Cape Vidal

Spring time at Cape Vidal has always been known for the big Couta and Wahoo, that's is you can get on the water between the fresh winds that nail that east coast over this time of the year. Unfortunatley the amount of times it is good over the weekends is virtually zero. This past weekend was some what different and the guys who took the chance got properly luck and nail some great fish.
Stefan Pretorius broke his personal best spearing a fantastic 25kg beauty.

I am not sure what this weekend holds, but I am sure if the guys can get in and spearfish ...some one will be smiling.

Coatesman

OneFish Spearfishing DVD Sneak Peak

Here is a sneak peak you will like :-)

This is one of the extras on the spearfishing  DVD OneFish that will be released in the next week or so.



If you can see the Video here go to: One Fish Ozzy Extra

Here are some more Spearfishing Videos

Onefish Spearfishing Episode 6 World Record Gulf Grouper
Onefish Spearfishing Episode 5 Cameron Kirkconnell World Record
Onefish Spearfishing Episode 4 - Huge Wahoo and Cubera!
Onefish Spearfishing Episode 3 - World Record Tuna!!!
Onefish Spearfishing Episode 2 - Finland to Qatar
One Fish Spearfishing - Episode 1

Spearfishing One Fish Mozambique
Spearfishing Marlin

Johnny One Eye's Garrick

Ryan (Tattoo) & John Van Rooyen Garrick while still on the clock!

With the Garrick around the guys seem to be making a plan to get in the water. John sent through this account:

Waking up the on 22 of October, Friday to a awesome morning meant one thing,one thing only,and that was that I had to shoot some fish.Flat as a lake and with vis 7 out of 10,meant I had to get in the water.

 

With my dive buddy Ryan being at work,I had to phone him and pull a fast one,which he fell for hook,line and sinker.I told him that a mate of mine just got out of the water with 3 snoek and the fish are on like a scone.Within a short time, he was out the office and ready to dive with me.

 

I decided to go and dive off Ballito, at one of my good old favourite spots,near Willard beach.On the way to the spot, I was getting my mate amped up and discussed the power that a Garrick puts up once you spear it,mentioning that a Garrick half the size of a Snoek, is twice as strong and a great fish to land.

 

20 min in to the dive "wack" Ryan spotted a descent shoal and landed a nice Garrick,a few minutes later I spotted a loaner and "wack" - Garrick home run to John Van Rooyen.

 

I am no pro and far from,but one thing I have learn't is that shooting Garrick is always a work out lol.

 

Happy Hunting

 

John(Johnny one eye)

Braidy gets a Garrick

Braiden 7.6kg Garrick speared off Boulder Point Ballito

For some time Braidy has been trying to get a Garrick, but for some reason he has just been unlucky ...over and over. He first took a shot at a Garrick 2 years back, and that was about the best opportunity he has had since. We have seen some fish but they always seem to keep their distance from him.

Saturday turned out different tho, we had been in the water for about an hour and I got bored waiting for Garrick so I went off into the white water to look for Brusher. I turned back after a while to see how Braidy was doing on the outside to see his gun unloaded and floating. I swam across to him and as I approached he gave me a big thumbs up.

I went down on the fish to see if it needed a second shot. Braidy had planted a perfect shot at the pectorals, so I left him to enjoy landing ...more like wrestling the fish.

There were a good couple reports of Garrick up on the coast and I think that this down run will be a good one next month.

Coatesman

Cape Boat and Ski Boat - Tuna Spearfishing Competition

Buddy Johnson 62kg Yellowfin Tuna

 The past 2 years the Cape Boat and Ski Boat Club has invited spearfisherman to join their annual October Tuna Competition. This year the weather was not all that good but the spearo's did get in on the one day and manage to get a fish. Buddy Johnson landed up with a 63kg Yellowfin Tuna. The vis was apparently not that great, but they did see some other very big tuna as well.

Coatesman

Spearfishing Dog Tooth at Kilwa Tanzania

Eric Allard - 60kg Dog Tooth Tuna shot off Kilwa Tanzania

The stories of spearfishing Dog Tooth in Tanzania are numerous, and enticing. Reality kicks home when you constantly get pics from guys like Eric with epic Dog Tooth Tuna that you can only dream of.
Here is Eric with a 60kg Doggie that he speared off Kilwa south of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. This was his second day in an 18 day trip.

16 days spearfishing to go I wonder what he will send me next?

Coateman

Spearfishing Update - Marcus 38kg Daga Salmon

Marcus Potgieter 38kg Daga - Umhlanga

Not too much has been happening this past week and weekend. The wind just not stopped. Sunday was looking good, but I did not hear of too many fish coming out.

Last week Marcus found a gap in the wind and managed to bag himself a great Daga of 38kg. I think that he will be the envy of most spearo's, myself included!

The sea looks mank again for the next few days ..hopefully the next few small southerlies will be good for us.

Coatesman

Spearfishing Dogtooth Tuna in Madagascar

One of the Dogtooth Tuna from our spearfishing trip to Madagascar

The footage from our spearfishing trip to Madagascar was so epic we did a quick edit and have added it to our next DVD OneFish out in the beginning of November. The spearfishing was so amazing that we are trying to organise to get back to Madagascar early next year. This time a little wiser and hopefully this time we will land some really big Dogtooth Tuna.

I am loading some more pics up on the One Fish facebook page so go check it out.

Coatesman

Join me on a spearfishing adventure of a lifetime to Madagascar & the famous Castor Banks - FIND OUT MORE HERE
SPEARFISHING MADAGASCAR | CASTOR BANKS & NOSY BE

Spearvision Spearfishing DVD

Ryan and Brods Spearfishing DVD Spearvision Trailer

Here is something for those Monday blues. If you havent already bought your self a copy of Spearvision ... well then check out some of the action.
If the video does not show go to :- Spearvision Spearfishing DVD Trailer

Spearvision is available at :-  SpearoDVD.com

Coatesman

Spearfishing Madagascar & the Casor Banks

I have just gotten back from an exploratory spearfishing trip to Madagascar. The Ultimate Spearfishing mag and a journalist from the French magazine Apnea were invited out to Nosy Sakatia by the spearfishing charter Orca Sakatia run by Craig Scott.

A Castor Banks Dog Tooth Tuna

I dont want to give too much away as we will be doing a full article in the next edition of the mag. But I have to tell you that it is off the hook! We only managed to get out to Castor Banks once as it is 80km out to sea!! But when you get there you will flip your lid. Castor Banks has to be the best place I have ever spearfished ...hands down. On 2 occasions I saw Black Marlin, one was a beast the other was probably about 150kg. We saw Sailfish on numerous occasions and there were Wahoo and Iggies every where. And thats only what you see from the surface!! When you get to 20-25m as you approach the drop off there are Dog Tooth Tuna  that swim at you like Salad fish only a 100 times bigger.

Dane Salmon happy finally have one Doggie in the hand.

The problem with a place like that is that you let fish of a lifetime just swim past, because once you have seen Marlin, Sailfish and 60plus kg Doggies thats all that you will settle for. I pulled back on shots on 30kg plus Ignobilis Kingfish and countless Wahoo. The prize was the Dogtooth, and putting spears into the Doggies was easy, the hard part was landing the fish. I lost and broke 5 spears and rigs, and I was only shooting the Dogtooth tuna I could get the best shots on. Even when you shoot a 40-50kg Dogtooth in the head you get snapped up. Dane shot what I think was a 60kg fish, I was on the bottom and saw the whole thing. It looked like he spined the fish and it went down doing somersaults, that fish some how still had plenty of life and it bolted off only to snap the metal clip on his line.

Ronan with his Sailfish

While Dane and I tried in vain to land a big Doggie, Ronan Bourhis the French journalist managed to get close to a Sailfish and landed a good one. We did manage to get a few small fish, but the Doggies beat us :-(
I think next time I will be whole lot wiser and more prepared...... Like take a whole bunch of spears prepared!

Coatesman

Join me on a spearfishing adventure of a lifetime to Madagascar & the famous Castor Banks - FIND OUT MORE HERE
SPEARFISHING MADAGASCAR | CASTOR BANKS & NOSY BE

Barry Skinstad Monster Daga

Barry 'Boris' Skinstad 55kg Daga

Just when thought that one of SA's best spearfishermen had stopped spearfishing ... well so we thought. Barry ...A.K.A Boris klaps this 55kg Daga. Now normally when you see some guy with a monster Daga you know there is a whole lot of luck involved. But some how knowing the way Barry dives ... I think this one was just a matter of time.

I dont know the story just yet but I will be sure to find out what went down.

What an awesome fish!! ...Welcome back Barry!

Coatesman

Spearvision Spearfishing DVD

Ryan & Brod's New Spearfishing DVD 'Spearvision'

The Spearfishing DVD by the two South African Champions Ryan Burmester & Brod Whittaker is out and available. This all South African spearfishing film will take you on an informative journey into Spearfishing, bringing you up close with some of South Africa's most sought after species. Ryan and Brod show you some of their best spots they dive, and how they dive them. Some of the footage you will see taken by two divers with above normal diving abilities will inspire and excite you, to dive deeper harder and shoot more fish.

To get this DVD go to SpearoDVD.com

Cheers

Coatesman

Results of World Spearfishing Champs in Croatia

Team:

Craig Heslop (Captain)

Ryan Burmester

Angelo Spada

Brent Bortslap

Andrew Henwood (Manager)

17 September - Positions after Day 1

Day 1 was really tough, the current was strong and a lot of the fish seen during scouting had moved.

We decided to focus on congers as they are fairly resident and more common than the other fish.

Interestingly very few fish came out yesterday, probably about 20 weighers out of 60 divers.  Most of which were wrasse and a few blacktail. Ryan did really well and got 3 congers out.  These fish are very strong and if you don't get them out of the cave immediately then you are in trouble. 

The Croatian team did well and all got good catches.  Daniel Gospic, 10 congers and 2 fish, biggest conger was 15 kgs, which is a monster.  Pedro Carbonell came in second with Tony from Croatia third. 

Today we are diving off zone 2 which is off the island of Unje which should hopefully hold more fish.  Brent is diving in place of Angelo today. 

The welcome party at the harbour was awesome with press and thousands of spectators.  The weigh in was more impressive with live video feed and big screen, all results were updated live on the screen which added to the excitement. 

Very well organised so far and we will give today our best shot to try and improve our position.

Positions after day 1

1.      Croatia

2.      Spain

3.      Italy

South Africa are lying 8th and Ryan currently 11th!

Final Positions after Day 2

Individuals:

1.      Daniel Gospic – Croatia

2.      Antonio Buratović – Croatia

3.      Bruno De Silvestri – Italy

4.      Pedro Carbonell – Spain

5.      Dario Marinov – Croatia

18.   Ryan Burmester - South Africa

33.   Brent Bortslap - South Africa

40.   Craig Heslop - South Africa

Total of 60 Divers.

Teams:

1.      Croatia

2.      Italy

3.      Spain

4.      South Africa

This is a good effort by our boys. There were a total of 20 teams!

Comments from Ryan Burmester:

Came 18th out of 60 divers, Was 11th after Day 1 but my sinuses bombed today so could not get down to my fish in the deep. Big time bummer after all our hard work was hoping to be first South African to crack top ten.

Comments from Craig Heslop:

As a team we got more points than yesterday but got pipped by Slovenia, Algeria and Great Britain. We ended up 11^th overall.

Brent did well today with 1 conger and 2 fish. Ryan and I got 1 each. Brent with his 3 fish today beat Joseba who is the current world champ. Just shows how tough conditions are out there.

Well done to our divers. I think despite some very obvious tough conditions against extremely good divers our boys did well.

Don't forget the guys our boys are diving against are paid for this and scout the areas for months on end beforehand. When Daniel Gospic was in South Africa for this year’s Nationals we could see his obvious talent, yet when he dived here some of our guys were competitive against him. Let’s bring worlds to South Africa and look for a South African World champion!

Spearfishing Wahoo of Cape Vidal with Koos Jordaan

The 'Mayor' of  Spearfishing in Zululand Koos Jordaan 42kg Wahoo

Now I have your attention!!

Us mere mortals only dream of spearfishing a big Wahoo, and when I say big lets be honest anything near 30kg is big. I guess Koos plays buy a different set of rules or something. I dont think any one told him that big was 30kg!! Or is it just that he likes the 'Bloody Big' category?

The funny thing is his son JP also likes the 'Bloody Big' Category and also got a big ..or should I say 'Bloody Big' Wahoo of 42kg also in the last week!! Both these fish were shot off Leven Point at Cape Vidal .... the thing is what else did they shoot? Or dont these guys take pics of fish under 40kg?

JP Jordaan 'Bloody Big' 42kg Wahoo

I think I am going to have to go and find out what these guys are doing .... coz what ever it is ..I need to know!

Coatesman

Spearfishing Daga Salmon on the North Coast

Spearfishing the North Coast can be rewarding
 Grant Somers 42kg Daga Salmon

We have a really good run of some very clean water for spearfishing this week. Unfortunately the fish have been a little quiet and not many guys have been getting fish.

Those who have come right have speared some good fish ...mostly Daga Salmon. The Durban Boys have been spearfishing the Daga off the wrecks and with the clean water they said they could see the containers from the surface!!

Grant Somers snuck up the coast this week and found himself a big fat 42kg Daga. I don't have all the details ..but wow what a fish.

Well done Grant!

Lets see what the weekend holds, maybe the swell wont mess things up too much.

Cheers

Coatesman

Spearfishing Kavieng Papua New Guinea.

I was just sent this video of guys spearfishing Kavieng in Papua New Guinea. The area the guys spearfished was off the Emirau Island just 160kms south of the equator and one of the northernmost provinces of Papua New Guinea. Check the footage the water is super epic!



Click Here to view the film Kavieng png PART 1

Here is part 2 of the video. This video was put together by Brett Vercoe of Liquid Focus who lives in Coffs Harbour on the beautiful North Coast of NSW, Australia. Brett is famous for his 'Immersion' Spearfishing films



 Click Here to view the film Kavieng png PART 2

I hope you enjoy

Coatesman

Pay Dirt

Sean O'Connor Daga Salmon - North Coast

The spearfishing conditions didn't look all that great yesterday afternoon, and most guys gave a dive a miss. Sean took the opportunity and found some cleanish water out in the deeper water.

He said that he shot the fish on a ledge that he has been diving for years. The spot is known for Daga but he has never come right. ... well!! The Daga apparently came swimming over the ledge towards him o the bottom and gave him a perfect side shot.
Mmmm the view that dreams are made of.

Anyway Kudos to you Sean.

Coatesman

Spearfishing UpDate

Robert and I after a great day up the North Coast

After seeing that the water had cleaned up over the last 2 days I bust my ass yesterday on the grapht mission sothat I could take the morning off to dive today. I hooked up with Robert and Ivor and went out to some our local spots up here on the North Coast.

The vis was not as good as we had hoped for, but it was more than good enough to spearfish in. The south west was still pushing so it was a bit rough, but we had all cleared our svhedules and so we went anyway.

We all got some great fish, I managed a nice sized Daga Salmon of about 14kg on a ledge in 27m. Robert got a Garrick out on the 20m line and also got some good size Grunter out on the sand.
There were a few snoek around, I got 2 and the one was 8.5kg gutted.

The forecast looks good for tomorrow and I am sure the guys will be getting in all along the coast. I have heard the guys are also getting in down south, Here is a report from Wayne:

I visited Umtintwini for a few days. Day 2 i woke up, and the sea was calm and clean. I only had 50 min, so i quickly jumped in.
5 min later i was lying on the bottom in about 4 meters of water, when two garrick swam past. they did not even see me behind the rock. i planted a great kill shot, and it was all over for this lovely fish.
I saw onother one a few min later, but it was very small. Sad to say the whole point did not have a single crayfish on it?


Here is a report from Darryl:

 Ken and i went for a quick one down at Port Shepstone just before low tide yesterday - viz was quite good with a bit of a groundswell and we got our quota of bugs, didn`t take my gun out,but didn`t see much fish either.
On the way back, it looked really clean at Southport with the patches of reef vizible a few hundred meters out, the groundswell was churning quite badly but otherwise viz was 6-10 meters, on the way back in a garrick swam underneath me in the whitewater, just after 3 big sets came through and as i dived a shoal of 15-20 materialised and shot one of 11,5 kgs, luckily the bigger surf had passed so managed to subdue it in the midbreak.
a bit bumpy and greenish this morning but it could settle.

cheers-

darrell

Hope you manage to get in this weekend

Coatesman

South Coast Spearfishing

Gary Bircher - Dorado Speared off Aliwal Shoal

Gary Bircher 18kg Garrick off Port Edward

 Its not that often that I get news from the mates down in Port Edward. If the water is not dirty, and there is no diving or then the big game fish are not around and the guy resort to hunting reef fish for the pot.

The Sardine run does always make things a little bit more exciting, but its usually the fisherman who get the big fish and the its still difficult for the spearfisherman.

Gary did get a very good Garrick, the one fish Port Edward is good for being the last stop before the Transkei.
Cornelis found himself a 24kg Couta and I am sure it came as a relief that this time it wasn't the fisherman who got the big one.

It must be seriously fustrating watching or hearing of the guys consistently getting big Couta from the shore during the winter and never even seeing a couta while diving. Such has been the case with another mate of mine down there.

Cornelis Fourie 24kg Couta - Port Edward

Anyway Spring is here and so is the 'Beast from the East' so for the next couple months its going to be sneaky dives here and there when the sea gives us gap ..... I doubt too many big couta like Cornelis's are going to be coming out.

Coatesman

SA Spearo Team are off to Worlds in Croatia!

Smiling members of the SA Spearfishing team receiving their personalised dive and gun bags from Rob Allen before jetting off to Croatia to compete in the world champs. From left to right: Rob Allen (sponsor), Dave Cockburn (Phil Gray Signage), Ryan Burmester, Brent Borstlap and Craig Heslop.Add caption

Some of the national team have already left for World Spearfishing Championships in Croatia, the rest of the guys will leave in the next few days. This will give the team just over a week to scout and climatize to the spearfishing conditions over there.

South Africa's best result to date was in Croatia some years back, lets hope the boys do well and keep the flag flying.

Good Luck,

Coatesman

Massive DatShark Activity with the Rotting Whale in Ballito

Day 4 and the Whale in Ballito still sits rotting. Spewing rotting whale blubber everywhere.

 Last Saturday a dead Humpback whale washed up on the rocks off Ballito, the already rotting carcus was followed by sharks and bite marks could be seen on the carcus. The sea and tide was perfect to tow the whale back out to sea, but the municipality in their wisdom decided to have a series of meetings spanning a couple days in which time the sea turned and the opportunity lost. The guys from the local Sharks Board where there ready to make an attempt on Saturday but the 'Eish' the municipality must have there 10cents or lack of involved.

So now we have a rotting 30 tonne chunk of whale stinking, and sending pieces of whales up and down the coast. Local people are also taking chunks of the rotting flesh .., one can only hope they are not eating it!!

Martin from the Sharks board said he found a huge chunk of intestine off Salt Rock yesterday .... that's 8km away!
He also said the Shark activity was insane, which loads of sharks in the area near the whale. The Sharks board have lifted all their nets all the way from Ballito to Salt Rock with this massive shark activity.

2m Tiger Shark beached just south of Salt rock beach.

Yesterday a juvenile 2m Tiger Shark washed up between Shakas Rock and Salt Rock main beach. The Shark has been sent off to the Sharks Board to find out the cause of death, and if it had been feeding on the Whale. I am sure this is only one a many that have been feeding on the whale. The problem is that even once the whale has been removed it will take weeks for the oily fat deposit on the beaches to wash away. The big question is .... when will it be safe to venture into the sea again??

Any one for a whale burger ... or any one keen to donate a leg to the sharks?

Coatesman

Spearfishing Update

Benjamin Bucher - 37kg Wahoo shot at 7mile - Sordwana Bay

Its been a bit crazy getting back to work after the long weekend at Sordwana for the Blue water Classic Compie.

Andy Henwood took the first prize on points, totally out preforming all the other guys on both days.
The diving was hard and many guys did not shoot a fish the whole weekend. Ben Bucher came second in the biggest fish category with his 37kg Wahoo. But I think he won the comp on envy!

Darrell sent through this report of the south coast:

Dont know if there`s been much diving the past few days??, certainly not inshore my side with this big cold front which just passed.
The august winds are on time too, so its a case of the `early bird` when the swell drops off.
I`m sure theres still some garrick about and the `sards` have probably disappeared though we hardly had action on the middle- south coast.
Last I got in was last Tuesday with `green but clean` water and saw a couple of snoek off the cuda court area in hibberdene, whilst my gun was snagged in a cave.
There are a few brusher making an appearance as the fishermen caught a few over the weekend along the Hibberdene-Umzumbe stretch though they were under 5 kgs.

Shane from Freedivers gave me a call to say his Bluewater Classic Comp was a successful comp. at Sodwana with a few sailfish coming out and one really big 30+ Kg wahoo amongst other fish as well.
Gary Gillon meanwhile was up at vidal and reported things quiet but they did manage one decent cuda and a 24 kg wahoo.

cheers-

Darrell

The diving here on the North Coast has been dismal and there has not been any diving for the last week or two. The Sardines in the Durban area, and the even the odd day were sardines have been netted. So hopefully if the conditions let the boys get in there will be some good reports soon.

Coatesman

Sardine Run & the Spearfishing

32kgs daga shot by Brett Kauffman

The north coast has some Sardine action over the last few days, but there has been very few reports of good fish coming out. The conditions have been fairly good so most guys have given it a go some where along the line. For the most part the odd Garrick and Snoek have been shot. That was until I got a mail with Brett Kauffmans Daga he shot yesterday off Westbrook.

This is what Darrel Hattingh has to report:

Splendid,splendid !! is how it has been this whole week. As I write the viz. is still 10-15 meter with a knee biting swell.We`ve had a great winter this year I think despite a bit of big swell and one or two weeks bad weather.

Fish have been few and far between with lots of clean watter but barren stretches though ,and it seems the gamefish are grouping in mass and following the sardines which last I heard were beaching up the north coast ?

However, I was rewarded yesterday when i jumped in off the first point north of Hibberdene main beach at around 9.30 and swam into a huge shoal of big,big snoek travelling south in about 6 meter depth - what an awesome sight in the 15-20meter viz, they were ambling lazily along in mid-water and between 60-80 fish I would guess-thought they were couta at first (could have been some sort of mass migration as last time I saw such big snoek was at Vidal in the eighties) anyway,i picked off one of the closest as they idled past,tracking it with my 1,1 freedivers railgun and popped it a good shot, by the time i strung it there were still snoek passing underneath my legs - some of them i`d guess in the 10-11 kg range as mine weighed 9 kilos !!

Saw Marc Lange who launched at hibberdene and they got some garrick and a few bottoms.

send me your reports please,let`s see what`s been happening??

cheers-

darrell

There is still a chance that the sardines will appear again ... hopefully this time with all the game fish.

Cheers

Coatesman

Spearfisherman Attacked by Dolphins!

Common Bottlenose Dolphins off the North Coast - pic Robin

Common Bottlenose Dolphins off the North Coast
Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water! Out come the North Coast 'Killer' Dolphins!!

No Seriously the local pod of dolphins off the north Coast area are rather aggressive. Here is a mail that was past onto me:

...have you guys received any “stories” of being molested by dolphins on the North Coast? Yesterday I went for a morning drift off the stairs at Sheffield Beach and when off the Christmas Bay point I got ‘mugged’ by a school of dolphins. It started out pretty mellow with me diving down in clean shallow water on the backline to check out the dolphins as they swam below me. The dolphins turned over as they sometimes do, presenting their undersides, and sort of nodding their heads, ‘smiling’ and looking upwards at me. I was enjoying swimming with them at close range all the while listening to them whistling and smiling back at them when suddenly the biggest one swirled out of the formation and buzzed me as a shark would. I got the fright of my diving life as it effectively somersaulted me over in its ‘prop wash’ as I fended it off. I headed for the surface a bit surprised by the sudden show of aggression and when I looked down the whole school took the big guy’s lead and surrounded me, making a heck of a racket and taking turns darting in at me. It was bloody intimidating to say the least and effectively ruined the remainder of my dive as I was continuously looking over my shoulder.

I did have a snoek on my float which I had pulled in close when I heard them coming and the one tried to pick it off while the school was working me over. I can’t help but think that this is this particular school’s modus operandi and I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar encounter.

Clive Hockly

You might think that dolphins attacking is 'bull' but I have lost more fish in the last 10 years to dolphins than to sharks off our coast.

The one time I had a large female showing her young how to out whit me ... and she did just that. Another time it was a whole pod like in Clives case, but the most intimidated I ever felt was with a big bull dolphin. I am not sure if you have ever seen Gambit at the Durban Aquarium, he is about 500kg, this chap look like this... bigger than any shark I had seen.
This huge dolphin did not try and out maneuver me and sneak up like the others. He just confronted me straight on ...and very close. I tried to push and punch but he just bobbed and weaved out the way.

Here is an interesting fact: a large Bottlenose Dolphin will eat as much as 35kg of fish a day. And at the moment there is nothing keeping their population down, so when they see your fish ...they are thinking easy meal!!

Coatesman

Shark Attack at Tiffanies!

Dale with 1 time half chewed off fin!

Quinton White sent me this mail about a shark 'attack / bite' at Salt Rock on Sunday!!

On Sunday a couple of us returned to Tiffany’s only because the day before had 100’s of good size snoek. Unfortunately Sunday only had bad viz and between 5 of us only 1 couta was spotted. We decided to get out of the water, Dale, Craig and myself swam in together, I was through backline first and dale followed, once you were through back line you we were on a sand bank, I managed to get over the sand bank quite quickly, and dale was still on the sand bank 4m away from a surfer. Dale got jerked about a meter or two back wards and was under the impression someone was fooling around when he lifted his head out the water him and the surfer was looking at each other not knowing who did what, later when we tried to put the puzzle together, it cam out that the surfer thought that Dale’s fin hit him the same time Dale jumped up. The scary thing is that is was only waste deep water and we think the only culprit that it could be is a Zambezi with a reaction bite in white water. Would be interesting to send the fin to ORI and see what they say. I have attached a pic of the fin.

Spearfishing Big Fat Return Couta

Mid Winter Fat Return Couta

Winter on the coast is the time of the year for spearfishing big fish. If its not a big Daga... you can get lucky with a fat Couta returning from the sardine shoals down off the Transkei coast.

I got lucky .. again!! And got this 20k Couta .. I could tell you where ..but that would be telling!!!

Coatesman

Weekend Spearfishing Wrap up

Spearfishing this weekend was fairly good all along the coast, the north coast was very clean. The swell picked up a little making the diving a little challenging in the shallows. The game fish were fairly quiet with the odd report of snoek coming out at various spots. Some guys did not see any fish tho ... and it seems like there were a few large shoals of fish swimming up the coast and those lucky enough to bump into the snoek came right.

The Garrick also started to make an appearance, with reports of large shoals coming past some of the points. The water was a bit clean and few of these fish were speared.

I joined a mate and took my lighty far north for a shore dive. The swim out in the swell was interesting but he managed none the less. The surge ment that we had to dive fairly deep .. for him atleast. We found some good reef in the 10 -13m depth that was no effected by the swell too much.
Braiden managed to get some good fish including a snoek and Catface Rock Cod. I landed up with 2 snoek not too bad, but if you consider that we dived for over 4 hours it was a bit dismal.

Braiden Some good fish ... for a lighty.

Further down the coast the guys dived the HUC Gamefish Open, Darrell sent through this report:

Thanks to all who attended the HUC Gamefish open on Saturday. We had close to 60 entries from as far afield as Northern KZN and Gauteng and it was well supported by local KZN spearos.

Conditions were fine early in the morning other than the cold land breeze but the low spring tide coupled with a moderate swell made for very difficult close inshore conditions (especially for shore entries) with visibility reduced down to 2 meters in the churn and most points were inaccessible due to the tide so most fish were seen along the flat sretches and sheltered side of the points right in the backline area, however the shoals of Garrick were around and a few snoek but one had to virtually swim right into them and it didn’t give one much time to line up and shoot. Viz out deep in the middle S.Coast area was 5- 8 meters which also proved difficult hunting conditions for`couta and though a few good fish were bagged on Friday by ski anglers, none were seen on the comp day.

Those that ventured out to Aliwal Shoal also found game fish few and far between but there were a few Sailfish,Wahoo and Ignobilis knocking about for those lucky to see the fish.

Jaco Blignaut scooped top prize of R5000-00 cash for a sailfish estimated (as the fish were gutted and gilled before the weigh- in) of around 45 kg followed by Ferdi Burger with an estimated 17 kg Wahoo. Carl Werner bagged himself a 15,5 kg Ignobilis kingfish to take third prize of R1500-00 cash and the consolation prizes of equipment and spear guns followed for biggest bag and lesser individual weights mostly smaller Garrick other than Donovan Solomon`s estimated 9,5 kg fish which won him a new Rob Allen  1,2m reel gun.

I was stoked with my 8kg snoek (which I `stoned` in about 1,5m depth off the point at Umfazazane and a 6kg Garrick) which won me the 1,2 carbon fibre JOHRI speargun.

Henk Kranouw had ` hard luck` with pegging a big sailfish and losing it on Aliwal.

I`ll compile the full list of results and email it out this week.

A hearty thanks to the HUC committee,wives and spouses and main sponsors especially Danie Swanepoel of Esteem property builders and renovators, Rob Allen/Dive Factory,Dive and Leisure (Jan and Louise Krynski),Rabitech(Louis Hattingh),Johri spear guns,C-Freaks,Aqua planet,Jaxx restaurant, our other sponsors and the Carousel resort in Hibberdene for hosting the event,prize giving and braai.

Cheers

Darrell

The rest of this week looks bleak until Thursday / Friday and with the high tides early in the morning I am sure there will be some Garrick shot.

Cheers

Coatesman

Spearfishing at Home

Home grown Couta & Snoek!

Over the last few weeks I have spent most my time diving away from home as the season has been rather disappointing here. I have dived Vidal, the Shoal and the Kei looking for some decent fish to spear. My search turned up rather fruitless.

On Friday a mate of mine Warren convinced me to do a 'fitness' dive ..... this was starting to look appealing as I have done very few shore dives lately and my fitness is starting to reflect in my diving. And there is no better fitness and conditioning than a a couple hour swim from the shore.

Anyway we headed out off one of our local spots and some how got separated. I thought Warren had swam up to a ledge further down the beach. Anyway I swam to thre next ledge and he wasnt there so I decided to hang around and do a few dives. The vis wasnt brilliant and it was difficult to find the drop off. On the one dive I missed the reef and hit the sand about 15m or so from the reef. I thought I would swim along the bottom towards the reef and maybe see if there wasn't anything chilling on the drop off.

Instead I swam into a Couta right on the sand! The vis at the bottom wasn't great and I closed in on the fish. It kept its distance and when it started to turn away I figured I was close enough to the fish and took the shot. I thought the fish was about 10kg, but when the spear took a while to hit the fish I realised that it was a decent fish. Long story short I landed the fish and was super stoked, and thought to myself the boys arn't going to believe this one!

Time was running out and by the time I landed the fish I was way down the beach and caring this beast back was not going to be fun. Next thing as I hit the back line a school of large snoek bail past. Instinct takes over and I manage to plant a spear into the tail of the small trailing fish in the shoal. This turns out to be another decent fish.

The Couta landed up weighing 21.68kg and the Snoek 7.83kg, the walk back was a little more than the fitness sesssion I had bargained for but it was all good. But most of all these two fish have restored my faith in my home reefs and I guess this is what keeps us going back out there spearfishing over and over ... especially when most the time we get blanks.

Coatesman