Posts by hank

Beats mine by 12 lbs.

Couple more pics. My buddy the "Spaniard and his cubera and cero. :My buddy Boy, Matt, Daryl and me and a 63 lb ulua in Hawaii in Aug 10-20. And my son and spearing buddy, Wilian, come 2025 or so.

CAme back from Hawaii with my new gun. Daryl made me a hybrid GR 55 with a reel and showed me some techniques he uses to sneak up on spooky fish. The lessons I learned from him were worth the price of the gun. Great guy and nice gun too.
Anyway, we got back and went back to our cubera spot. Same big school there in spawning mode. WE filled the cooler pretty fast. Strong current and had to get down to about 50-60 feet to get at them.
The big one was hiding in a different spot. I coaxed him out of his hole with a chopped up cero mackerel. Then waited about 15 minutes and dove down on top of his hole from behind. Snuck up, peaked over the edge and there he was, looking out into the channel. I had a hell of a time with the single barb shaft. He was trying like hell to get back into his hole...but a 60 inch shaft doesn't fit well into a 3 foot wide hole. Lucky for me.

Got this one Sat Sept 11, while he was thinking he was hiding under a ledge near his hole. I snuck up behind him on the ledge above him while he was looking out into the channel.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/…my_breath_for_17_min.html

This was just posted on Spearboard. A guy supposedly does this in a pool or sitting in a room. He's done up to 24 minutes. ?? HOly shit.

Quote from fishhound

spearing mostly...just thought it could be a safety measure to prevent swb and make you more comfortable while down...just thought it to be an interesting topic.

This is a good question. I wish I could answer it.
I have oxygen here on the farm that we use for shipping baby shrimp. It would be interesting to just lie on my couch and compare, breathing up with just air, and then trying with....say just 4 breaths of pure o2, and see it there is a big increase.

As mentioned, the difference is when you dive down. Even at 40 feet you've more than doubled the parrtial pressure of O2 in your lungs,( which is already 400% higher than normal from breathing pure O2) and this could cause physiological problems in O2 absorbtion.

One more.

The fish is a lot prettier than I am. We didn't get a lot of photos. What a great couple of days.

Sunday. My buddy, "the Spaniard" got a couple nice ones.
The fish were staying on the bottom at about 50 feet near the reef drop off. We would dive down looking away, get to the bottom and slowly look up to see them circling around. At first I was hiding my gun but when I'd slowly draw it out for a shot, you could hear a "whump" sound as they spooked and would move off a bit. After that, I'd just go down with the gun extended and ready to shoot.
The dog snappers were circling above the cuberas. Jorge shot one so we could get a "grand slam". A dog, a mutton and cubera on the same day.
PS The scuba tank is for emergencies. We had a stuck anchor at 90 feet. All fish are shot free diving. It's the law here.

It must be because it's my birthday tomorrow.
Went out to Turneffe Atholl Saturday and lucked into a spawning session of about 2000 cuberas...at least. Also had a school of 200 or so dog snappers hanging close by AND numerous muttons cruising through. Not to mention a school of about 50 nice size permit and a few big horse eye jacks.
We went back today and jumped in the same spot...no fish. I drifted about 400 yards south and lo and fricken behold...there they were again. Not near as many cuberas but more dogs with muttons still hanging around.
We each got a couple cuberas, I got a mutton and a jack.
I'll post more pics when my buddy emails them to me.
These were days we dream about as spear fishermen. Un frickn' real. We could have got so many more but....I'm just thankful to have seen this at least once in my life. We left plenty behind.

I consider myself a lightweight around here, but WELCOME ! I just ordered a copy of your book.

'thanks, Dan. It was an all around beautiful day.

NIce day on the reef. Got this cubera on a last drift through the cut. Got a couple groupers and hit a nice horse eye jack but he tore off bummer.
Never weight this one but guessing....40 lbs?

I've been reluctant to post this photo because this fish is protected in FL and the US. But they're legal here in Belize. Shot it free diving in about 50 feet. It took the floatline down to about 100 feet over the reef wall and pretty much died. I thought it was about 60 lbs when I shot but it was at least 120. Didn't get to weigh the whole fish...the head without the gills and pectoral fins weighed 18 lbs. Really good eating too.

These guys hunt from little one man canoes. They're about 6 to a "mother boat", which is about a 30 foot sailing boat with a small motor.
I think they stay inside the reef mostly because they split up and are alone most of the time. Maybe they've lost a few to SWB? Not sure. But that's their MO.
They aren't concerned with long term planning to save the fishery. Belize has established no take zones but they're not enforced because of pressure from these guys. I see them right in the middle of the Southwater Marine Reserve. They do stay away from Hol Chan and the San Pedro tourist areas though.
But Glovers Reef is almost ALL a marine reserve. I spent 3 days out there a month ago and didn't see one conch inside the reef. Few hogfish. You can tell it's fished pretty heavily.
The main problem here is education and enforcement of the laws. No money for game wardens.

But yes, if can get down to 60-80 feet or more and hunt there are fish. This is probably because scuba spearing is illegal.

Quote from Pucho

Utilizo teca, pero se puede usar caoba tambien y es mas barata.

"using Teak, but can use CAOBA just the same and it's more cheap".
I think that's what you said. (my wife's Honduran and I'm a slow learner of language) What is caoba?

Quote from Dan

hank, How deep do the commercial spearfishers dive?

They mostly hunt inside the reef in 5-20 feet or so. They take grunts, snapper, hogfish as small as your hand. I've seen a couple guys outside the reef at about 35 feet getting lobster.
They're good...they do it for a living. But they use slings so they don't get midwater, bigger fish.

Quote from Dan

Welcome Hank. Good to have someone from Belize on board, I wondered before if spearfishing was even legal there.

Thanks for the warm welcome.
Spearfishing is legal here but freediving only. And they recently banned tourists from spearfishing, which made no sense to me. There are only a few sport spearos here that I know of. There are some commercial pole spear guys who have cleaned out areas inside the reef. But there are still some good areas.
My regular buddy and I hunt the dropoff walls in front of the cuts. Also get out to Turneffe Atholl and have been to Glovers Reef.

MY name is Hank Bauman. Commercial aquaculturist by trade. Been spearing since the mid 90s but more intensively since about 6 years ago here in Belize. Only free diving here.
I have a 25 foot skiff with a 90 ETEC and get out on the reef pretty much every week. Shoot muttons, dog snappers, black grouper, jacks, cero mackerel....hope to get a wahoo. We can shoot Goliaths here too. Legally.
Looking forward to sharing stories and pictures.