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

Packed and ready to go!

10 Bells and finally packed for Mozambique.

We are off to shoot another film up in Mozambique, it has been a manic last few days getting everything ready. Our trip will take us 20 hours in the ol Landy .... bring on the redbull!!

We have a tracking device in the boat so you can log in each day and sea were we are. We will also be trying to organise internet connection while up there sothat I can keep the blog ticking.

Log into: http://196.40.106.215/digit/google_device.php?device_number=4421

The username: grm

and password are:  grm

A big thanks to the guys from GRM Technologies for sponsoring the tracking of the boat.

Off to bed for a couple zeeees

Coatesman

Sneak Peek at New C Ski 444 Spearfishing Boat

The new wider C Ski 444 with the new top deck.

We are off to go an film another spearfishing film on Tuesday. Steve Ellis has lent us his "prototype" C Ski 444 to use while we are up there. I was at the factory all day yesterday helping get all the final fittings done, and will pop in there just now to install the fishfinders and other gizmo's.

The new top deck finishes the boat off really well, and because the boat is now wider you dont lose any deck space. This boat is not the final 444 tho. Steve has a totally different deck layout for the production model and he has a totally new mold for the hull.

Any way I will be taking more pics and will post them as we go allong. We are hoping to organise internet access up in Moz so I can blog while I am up there. ..... And make you jealous with all our big fish :-)

Coatesman

The Spearfisherman - The Spearfisherman's Worst Enemy!

At a time when we are all worried about the bunny huggers are going to ban spearfishing, we give those who hate us ammo! Aaron McCamon is the latest in this class of fools, nobody is perfect and all are guilty in some way (even giving your fish away is a criminal offense!), but this is ridiculous. Poaching 54 crayfish and shooting a Natal Wrasse, thats 62 crayfish!!
The only thing that upsets me about Aaron McCamon being caught is the negative publicity.The only time a spearo is in the news is for 'murdering' an old fish or raping the sea. Its no wonder that we dont get the time of day from the general Joe public and the authorities.

What makes me even more irate is that when ESA's Craig Stubbs was caught selling fish, and charged. The story never made it to the press, despite a report given to the local rag (the same paper below) by the authorities. That guy should have been hauled over the coals, especially since he is a public figure.

Hefty fine for spear fisherman - Story from The North Coast Courier 20th November 2009 page 5

Here's the question? When are we going to wake up and start holding ourselves and mates accountable for our actions? I am sure that this chap might have had a different day if his mates ...who should have some influence over him had put pressure on him not to poach?

Lets keep it tidy,

Coatesman