Posts by sdeisen

    man, I've been watching the weather in sofla for a few weeks and it seems like the winds been nonstop. Nice work

    Make a friend who dives, or train a friend to spearfish with you. Diving alone may result in 49 freedivers.


    If you need to dive alone, which I dont think anyone needs to dive alone. Stay shallower than 1atm around 30 ft. and do not push past your limit, dont even get near your limit of breathholds. (and thats no fun) With that said accidents can always happen in any depth of water, so if you choose to dive alone, nobody here to stop you, or save you. (sorry to be blunt but it needs to be said)


    After spending a couple months in Hawaii (over the course of a few trips) I'd have to say that's much easier there than on the mainland. Wayyyy different spearfishing culture & culture in general. I may just be cynical of most people but living in south Florida and diving with a lot of different people I more often than not never picked up the phone by choice before heading to the beach. It's been a few years since then though and spearfishing has become a lot more "mainstream".

    Thanks for the welcome all,
    Hookinfish, yeah its an ulua, largest fish landed with a spear so far, at 98lbs.
    Went out looking for ulua houses at one of our frequented dive spots the day before, and found a nice house we'd all heard about but hadnt found yet. Checked it, only a small Omilu (blue fin trevally) was home. We ended up swimming back and I hit my record depth at the time 98'.
    Next day, my other buddy who had to work the day before needed fish for a bbq and fish fry. We set out with our three prongs with a goal of just shooting Kole (gold eye surgeon) bringing our guns just in case some dumb mus or ukus came around. After shooting about 30 kole a piece my buddy Tom started following this mu pile and ended up dive bombing one, so the hunt was on. After chasing mu and some skiddish omilu around the current had taken us back to the house from yesterday. I went down not expecting much and a fat Ulua swims up to the front entrance of the cave. Everything is in slow motion now, I line up the shot with my 120 roller and bam....almost perfect stone shot....almost. Tip barely nicks the fishs brain and probably turned out the lights. With the shaft imbeded in her head the Ulua starts circling the cave entrance smashing into rocks and coral. I try to play the fish lightly so the shaft doesnt pop out. During ascent i signal to my partner that I shot something and he should back me up. He does....and misses point blank....yup. My shaft ends up pulling out as Tom reloads his gun, im yelling at him to hurry up. lol ME: "reloaadd Tom!!" TOM: "SHIIIIIITTT!". Toms gun is loaded, line wrapped all hamajang. I re wrap it in what feels like forever as the fish is swimming blind on the bottom at around 65'. I make a dive, thank god the fish has lodged itself between two massive boulders, and didnt swim the other direction into the deep, I shoot it on the top of the head, i miss the stone but the flopper is securely engaged in the fishs mouth/gill area. I horse the fish up after Toms reel line gets tangled in the bands. At this time the fish throws up an entire Kala (unicorn fish) estimated at 3-4 lbs. I gill the fish and attempt to brain it using a 4 inch skindiver knife, while tom helps me out with a slightly larger skeleton knife stabbing the fish a little too close to my face. After we have the fish secured I praise god and scream some profanities in my excitement and joy. We swim back to shore, guarding the fish from potential taxation. We get out, pull the buoy up to the rocks, clip on buoy breaks from the weight of the fish. I jump back in with no fins or mask. Pass the tail up to Tom. We hoist the fish up. And for the next half hour or so carry the fish up a sketchy ass rocky cliff. Once we get to my car, I estimated the fish to be only around 60 lbs and attribute the struggle carrying it to dehydration and dive strain. We take the fish to S. Tokunaga's (local fishing and sporting goods store) to get a certified weight.....and Holy shit 98lbs. Im stoked, just shy of a hundo but in my eyes when i shot it it was over 100lbs, too bad she had to throw up. After we got the weight, we took the fish to Toms and cleaned it up. Pulling another 3-4 lb kala from its stomach and discovering some big egg sacks. We dig a hole, throw the guts and carcass. Strip the meat out, soak it, and have smoked fish for what seemed like forever.:thumbsup2::thumbsup2: No cig either.


    Good story. Get it together Tom lol.

    The dive watch seems to be a recurring theme here. In my humble opinion (that has formulated after having a few dive buddies that really look at it a lot and think it's some kind of measure of something) that it can be as much a hinderance as a helper. Meaning that it seems some people use it in the same negative way they use free dive "training". Thinking that because the watch tells them they had a long enough surface interval that they are good to go inspite of what their body may be telling them. Also it creates a competition with yourself, trying to push deeper so you get the gratification of that little number getting higher. I used a dive watch until it ran out of batteries and while it was fun to see depths and bottom times it can easily become an unhealthy obsession and I know a few people who's mentalities really play along with that. Maybe it is coincidental but a lot of those people also took part in some type of course, which I noticed from reading they want you to have or require for the course gear wise often includes a depth displaying dive watch. I use a regular digital watch and try to give myself reasonable surface intervals based on what it says but sometimes the minimum isn't enough and the body knows if you're willing to listen.

    Bittersweet indeed. Morays can be so tenacious. The largest black grouper I ever shot was almost lost to a very thick green moray. It locked it's body in the reef and mouth in and around the gills of the grouper. Even after being stuck hard with the albeit blunt end of my gun in didn't even flinch. It wound up following the grouper all the way up from 80 feet before letting go just 10 feet from the surface and hung around half a minute after I had the fish in my hands.


    Sorry for your loss, very frustrating. Always heard the marquesas are beautiful and bountiful place to dive.