Spearfishing News: Braiden's Garrick and Cold Water

Braidy 9.5kg Garrick

The east wind s have pushed in some clean water, but as can be expected any water from the east is going to be cold. With the afternoon high tides Braidy and I climbed in to look for some Garrick. He out did me 1- 0 ...and some how I get the feeling that this is only the beginning of him beating me.

Other spearfishing news is that there have been some Snoek on the Westbrook to Umhloti stretch. This is rather strange in the 18deg water that we are having. Maybe they think that they are Cape Snoek!!

The Zululand coast has had some marginal conditions, but the Couta are still coming out in fair numbers.
...... maybe we will go have a look there next week if the sea doesn't warm up here at home.

There are still 18 more days left in the Spierre Carbon Fins Promo on the Ultimate Spearfishing Magazine. The topics so far are cooking, and there are also some heated debates going down.

So far the top topics are:

Which Carbon Fins for Spearfishing?

Imported Wetsuits or Local?

Baited Diving, Chumming & Cage Diving

So if you don't feel like working head over to the forum ... 

Coatesman

Spearfishing Weekend Wrap Up

Ryan Berry doing it right.

Conditions along the Natal coast this weekend were a bit iffy for spearfishing, although there was a dive to be had at most spots. North and south of Durban had some diveable water but it was not the warmest water and the od Garrick and Snoek came out here and there. Most guys were not complaining as they were happy to ad least get in the water.

Further up north the story seemed a little different. Ryan Berry an old time local at Sodwana went to test drive his sinuses after a recent sinus op.  It seems all went well with good fish speared and sinuses ok.

Other news is that Brod put up his short documentary on the  Euro Africa Spearfishing Championships this is definitely worth a watch ... give some good insight into how tough it really was.

The Ultimate Spearfishing Magazine and Spierre fins have also started a competition on the USM Spearfishing Forum where you can win a pair of Pure Carbon Spearfishing Blades from Spierre.
All you need to do to win is start a "Hot" topic on the forum and the one that gets the most action wins.

Go here to find out more: Spierre - USM Competition

So even if the water stays cold at least the forum will be heating up this month.

Cheers

Coatesman

Euro-Africa Spearfishing Qualifier Update

Hey Guys

The Euro-Africa CMAS Spearfishing Qualifier in Peniche Portugal is over and our boys have done us proud. The results were pretty grim and you could be forgiven if you thought the guy blew it. But you need to have an idea of what they were up against and realise they actually did ok.

Well at the end of the day the mission was to qualify for the World Spearfishing Championships, and they achieved this! So hats off to the guys.

Angelo has an in depth report up:

Hi all,
Some feedback from the proverbial 'horses mouth'.
As I am sure many of you have seen from windfinder, windguru etc, the Portuguese coastline around Peniche is hammered by wind. In the almost three weeks we were there we had about 4 days of light winds - the rest of the time it BLEW.
The two official comp zones were very different from ont to the other. The northern zone had quite a lot of reef in the northern 3/4 with a long beach in the south and some reef right ate the south (bear in mind that the zones were about 11 km long). The southern zone had limited reef and long stretches of sand (hence the continual poor viz). Most of the reef was located in the north with some very good patches of reef in the south (but viz tended to be poorer in the south - if that is possible). 

Read More ....

Coatesman

Markus Potgieter - 22kg Garrick Spearfishing

Markus Potgieter 22kg Garrick

The spearfishing the last few days has slowly gotten worse. And now the conditions are bad with some swell and wind all thrown in together. Yesterday seemed like that last gap and a few guys tried to jump in and make the most of what conditions were diveable.

Markus Potgieter snuck out to one of his spots in some deepish only to find a 22kg Garrick in a shoal of snoek?? Here's the mail he sent me:

Hey bud thought you might be interested in my Garrick I shot yesterday; I shot it out of a shoal of snoek. When I first saw it I thought it was a GT at first, but was the biggest Garrick I have seen! Every time I get one it amazes me at the power of the fish! It tipped the scales at 22kgs a personal best!

This is with out a doubt the biggest Garrick of the year this side, and possibly the biggest over the last few years. Ok ...some guys have claimed bigger but when you look at the picks and fish is no ware near shoulder high then you know they need to check the scale.

The last 'genuine' big Garrick I have seen spearfished off our coast was Warren Blackmore's 19kg Garrick in 2004

Warren Blackmore 19kg Garrick - Tinley Manor

So well done to Markus, any more crazy fish like that and we will have to make him 'King of the Coast' ....sorry Brod :-)

Coatesman