Spearfishing Giant Marlin on a Reelguns

 What are your thoughts on targeting extra large fish with reelguns?

Over the past few years a number of XL Marlin have been landed on spearguns using reels. I personally was lucky enough to have shot and landed a Black Marlin of 230kg using a 130 Rob Allen reelgun. I had a perfect opportunity, and landed a kill shot stoning the large fish. But it has always intrigued me as to what would have happened if I did not stone the Marlin with a lethal shot. 

230kg Black Marlin

Over the past few years a number of XL Marlin have been shot and landed with reelguns. Many of them were also killed on the first shot. The most notorious is Albert Prinsloo's 374.8 kg / 826.3 lbs IUSA World Record Black Marlin. 

Albert Prinsloo's 374.8 kg / 826.3 lbs
IUSA World Record Black Marlin. 

But what happens when you don't kill the giant fish on the first shot? 

Guy Le Meme's 253kg beast Black Marlin shot with a std Rob Allen 120 reelgun, was one of those fish that put up a fight. Taking 2 hours and multiple shots to subdue the fish. 

Guy Le Meme's 253kg Black Marlin

Shooting giant fish like these on reelguns normally means that you run out of the spearguns reel line pretty fast and you need to have a beltreel or access to a float and buoy line to land the fish. 

Probably the best blow for blow example of this is the Black Marlin Cris Dillon shot in Mozambique.
The marlin quickly emptied the gun reel and Cris's belt reel. Fortunately his friend Jamie was there to clip his belt reel to the spooling line. This gave them enough time to get a large float attached to Jamies line.
From there the fish towed them 5km before they could get the fish close enough to get a second kill shot to kill the fish.

Watch the a blow by blow video here: Spearfishing Marlin on a Reel Gun

So would you take the shot if you only had a reel gun in your hands when a giant fish swims up to you? I think if you are prepared with beltreels and a float ready to clip on then, yes. 
Maybe one day I will have another opportunity to shoot a giant fish like this, and have adrenaline rush of battling the fish with out killing it outright. 

Coatesman

Jaco's BIG Day Out!

Jaco Bilgnaut with a +/- 30kg Couta

 Jaco one SA most prominent spearfisherman and a guy who has proven to be able to hold his own against the rest of the world & he ceases to amaze us. Every year there is another story of Jaco clapping some amazing fish .... and often in extreme circumstances. This day was no exception! A 27kg Couta (weighed gutted) and a 110kg Black Marlin ...on a reel gun!! You are probably wondering where? ...Well ..Where else but the Shoal!!

Any of those fish alone would be cause for celebration, but the two together! Oh did I mention he also got a 15kg Wahoo and 15kg Kingfish aswell that day.

Jaco and his 110kg Black Marlin Shot with a reelgun!

Apparently the Marlin took 2 hours to land as he plugged the thing with a reel gun! It makes you think he must have had a pretty busy morning ??

The whole thing was video taped and if you are like me I am itching to see how the whole thing went down.

So while the shoal couta are a no show ...well at least the rest of the sea is still kicking!

Coatesman

Chasing Tails - Mozambique Spearfishing Trip

I got back from 21days in Mozambique 2 days ago, and have finally plucked up the courage to get in front of the PC and answer the hundreds of unattended emails.
We had an epic trip starting in Morrongulu and ending in Guinjata, And to top it off we generally only had a couple of bad weather days which by chance landed up being travel days.

Morrongulu is a beautiful place with amazing reef to explore, maybe too much tho as we spent alot of time looking for reef that had good game fish on.We did find a good reef towards the end of our stay there and Richard managed to get a 21kg Couta on one of the dives.The expanse of reef there holds huge populations of reef fish and we took acouple good reef fish on the days before finding the game fish reef.

I Shot some good fish, I got a Snapper of about 8kg and a big Purple Cod. There were some Iggies around and I got one of 20kg, but I had to wrestle him out of a cave after being reefed. This was not too much fun in the screaming current, and I hurt my lungs which put a damper on my diving for a good couple of days.

Brett and Richard also got some great fish, and on most days got personal bests on a number of species.

 Brett de Charmoy with a 14kg Marbled Grouper / Coral Trout

Richard Leonard 8kg+ Baha Snapper

Sylvia Shoal at Morrongulu is an amazing reef and it comes up to as little as 7m, the one day we even had some surf breaking on it! We took my son Braiden and Bretts wife Lisa out for a dive and they both got great fish. Lisa shot an 11.5kg Couta, seriously not bad since that was her first fish ever!

Lisa de Charmoy 11.5kg Couta

Braiden had a blast, he shot his first Kakaap and broke broke his biggest fish record a couple times with some nice Fulvies around the 5-6kg mark. His best fish was a 9.56kg Yellowfin Kingfish, which gave him a proper hiding. Pulling him under water as he was trying to keep it off the reef.

12yr old Braiden Coates - 12.56kg Yellowfin Kingfish

We left Morrongulu and headed for Guinjata, were we found the water was green and really not what we were after. But with after some diving we found that in the afternoons at Pindane the fish were thick and even in the bad vis we could still get good fish.

Magical afternoon spearfishing - check the size of the Kakaaps between 8-9kg!

Another good arvo sesh

On the last diving day we woke to a south west pumping, we had planed to dive that morning pack that afternoon and leave early the next day. But when we saw the sea cleaning up in the wind we decided after much deliberation to stay one more day. We were hoping the wind would drop enough to catch the afternoon sesh back at Pindane.

The wind did drop enough to get out but the sea was still ruffled. When we jumped in the water was a milky blue and looked very fishy. A shoal of Rainbow runners came in as we were winding down the flasher I dived to have a closer look. Fortunately I did not take on as the next thing this huge marlin comes in. At first I thought it was a dolphin, but soon realised it was a marlin. I just managed to get my camera on and lined up a shot as it was turning away. I only had my 1.3 Rob Allen reelgun ... and a beltreel ...like thats going to help!

Anyway I took the opportunity and shot. The spear lands above the pectoral fin and the fish just stops and does a full flip onto its back. I went absolutely nuts, I could not believe that I had just shot a marlin stone dead ... and on a std 1.3 with a 20mm rubber.

You only dream of pics like this!

I got Brett to put in a holding shot, as I have had smaller fish slip off when the spear hits the spine, and there was no way I was loosing this fish. Landing the fish was very surreal it was super huge, it was still twitching and I was nervous that it would wake up and take me with the tangle of line to the bottom. The next thing was getting it onto the boat a 444 C-ski, this actually went surprisingly well and the fish fitted down the one side ...just!

Fish of a lifetime - 228kg Black Marlin

We battled to weight the fish so we landed up cutting it in half and weighed the pieces, it did loose a lot of blood but what we weighed came to 228kg. Thats over 500lb which I was very stoked with as very few spearfisherman have broken the 500lb mark.

So all in all it was an epic trip, with some great fish and some very good footage. All we need to do now is edit down the whole lot and then you will get to see the action first hand.

Coatesman

Book your own Mozambican Spearfishing Adventure go to: Spearfishing Charters Mozambique

Sordwana Marlin and Sailfish

Danie 80+kg Black Marlin & Craig with a 30 + kg Sailfish Speared off the Canyon at Sordwana.

We all dream about diving a spot when its on. This past weekend was one of those for a small bunch of guys in the right place at the right time. Craig Harper was one of the guys on the trip who came right not once but twice. It has not been with out paying some dues tho, he is a committed sojourner and has loads of trips under his belt. He will be the first to tell you its not always on! Most times its a hit and miss affair.

On this trip Craig got 2 sailfish in consecutive days ..both well in the 30's. He saw a Marlin of over 200kg but could not get a very good shot so did not shoot. Danie landed a Marlin on a reel gun and Greg Audi alos using a reelgun landed a 20+ kg Couta in some very deep water. I am sure there were other fish but they did not get mentioned for obvious reasons.

I am now dreaming of it being on for me!

Coatesman

Weekend Spearfishing Wrap Up.

You Got to love long weekends!!! Nothing overly epic happened but we got to dive and surf. There were a few sneaky snoek around once the vis cleaned up. The surf was small and fun and best of all it was a Monday and we did not have to rush anywhere!!

I heard that some nice cuta came out off Umhloti / La Mercy side. And a mate of mine even shot a Dagga Salmon this morning!! But he is not telling where tho :-(

This week looks good all week ... maybe just maybe it will turn on!

lastly anther mate while diving at Jex lost his FreeDivers Reel Gun. He said that some chap had paddled past it on his ski but thought that a spearo was with it. So if by some chance you were up that way or heard of some one finding a reelgun floating around please just give me a shout.

Cheers,

Coatesman

21kg Cuta shot with a reelgun.

This weekend was epic for Spearfishing, the conditions were great and most spots had very good vis. The early birds seemed to get the fish and some great fish came out, including some Wahoo off Westbrook. I even saw a pic of a 30kg Wahoo that was caught off a ski.

We headed north on Saturday and I got lucky with a 21kg Cuta, we thought the fish was bigger as it was long and had a huge head. But it was a bit skinny and only just made 21kg.

I took my lighty for a dive on Sunday off the stairs, we dived all the way out to 4th reef. The water was very clean, but it was quiet. We dived for 3 hours with Braidy landing up shooting some reef fish on the inside.

Its good to see the fish starting to come on ..... with some luck we will get some more good water and some good diving.

The long term forecast is looking great for next weekend.

Cheers

Coatesman

The more you dive the luckier you get.

Lets just say I hit a luck!

The sea looked great on Friday arvo, with the east dropping and the water still looking Nice and blue. The morning looked like it was going to be on, and the cell did not stop with calls and sms fine tuning the dive arrangements for the morning.

But when I woke about an hour before light, it was raining and I could hear the sea coming from the east ... not a good sign. Andy and Craig picked me up and we headed for Christmas Bay, the windscreen wipers working overtime did seem to dampen the spirits.

When we go to the spot the lack of light did not give us a true idea of how bad the sea was, and with Craig and Andy always keen to give it a go it was not long before we were in our suits walking down the beach.

By now it was starting to get light ... well enough to see that the swell was way bigger than we thought, there was a moment of apprehension ..... it did not look inviting!

But I have this thing some of my mates hate ......when I am in my suit and on the beach there is very little chance of me turning home. Thats like admitting defeat even before the battle!

So wealtered our plans and setteled for an easyer swim in one of the bays, like i said not often Craig or Andy back down either. The swim was not to bad and when we got out the vis was not too bad with the high tide eliminating some of the surge.

We headed out aiming for the drop off, but with the recent storm surf washing all the vegetation away my marks were non existent and we overshot the drop off by at least 50m. We were in about 18 or 19m of water were the surge had not affected the water as much as on the reef on the inside and the first 10 -15m was actually quiet good.

I was on my second or third dive to check the depth so as to see how far off the reef we were when this shape appeared beneath me on my way down. It was a bit gloomy and at first I thought it was a shark ..... but only for a smidgen of a second, the chiseled nose of a cuta was a dead give away. What a luck! To dive straight onto a fish in the gloom. I took aim with my 1.2 Freedivers Reelgun and planted the spear in its back ....... then it was the usual getting dragged around the sea.

After about 10 or 15min ..... however long, its not like you time these things, the fish was in sight. Andy went down and ended the fight, my shot was good and the fish was going nowhere. But I always appreciate a mate securing the fish, had too many keepers come off or eaten by sharks.

The rest of the dive was a right off the conditions seemed to get worse with the dropping tide and and none of us saw a single fish. Like I said I hit a luck!

Anyway my luck weighed 19.98kg ...... Andy rounded it off to 20kg with "Whats 20g between mates"

I have had a couple of dives recently, where we just went out because we were there and had a real shocker of a dive ... I suppose luck will eventually find you!

Coatesman

P.S - don't hold your breath for a dive this week it is looking seriously bleak. There is a cold front down south but all the forecasts are showing that it will not reach us. And the Beasterly Easterly will cause havoc!