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Spearfishing

Hunting for fish using a spear

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Spearfishing may be done using free-diving, snorkelling, or scuba diving techniques, but spearfishing while using scuba equipment is illegal in some countries. The use of mechanically powered spearguns is also outlawed in some countries and jurisdictions such as New Zealand.

History

Spearfishing with barbed poles (harpoons) was widespread in palaeolithic times. There are references to fishing with spears in ancient literature; though, in most cases, the descriptions do not go into detail. An early example from the Bible is in Job 41:7: Canst thou fill his [Leviathan] skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?.

The Greek historian Polybius (ca 203 BC–120 BC), in his Histories, describes hunting for swordfish by using a harpoon with a barbed and detachable head. Greek author Oppian of Corycus wrote a major treatise on sea fishing, the Halieulica or Halieutika, composed between 177 and 180. This is the earliest such work to have survived intact. Oppian describes various means of fishing including the use of spears and tridents.

In a parody of fishing, a type of gladiator called retiarius carried a trident and a casting-net. He fought the murmillo, who carried a short sword and a helmet with the image of a fish on the front. Copper harpoons were known to the seafaring Harappans well into antiquity. Early hunters in India include the Andamanese peoples, aboriginal inhabitants of India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, who have used harpoons with long cords for fishing since early times.

Traditional

Spear fishing is an ancient method of fishing and may be conducted with an ordinary spear or a specialised variant such as an eel spear or the trident. A small trident-type spear with a long handle is used in the American South and Midwest for gigging bullfrogs with a bright light at night, or for gigging carp and other fish in the shallows.

Modern

Traditional spear fishing is restricted to shallow waters, but the development of the speargun, diving mask and swimfins allows fishing in deeper waters. Some freedivers are able to hold their breath for more than five minutes, a diver with underwater breathing equipment can dive for much longer periods.

In the 1920s, sport spearfishing using only watertight swimming goggles became popular on the Mediterranean coast of France and Italy. This led to development of the modern diving mask, fins and snorkel. The world's first English- and French-language modern spearfishing books, Guy Gilpatric's The Compleat Goggler and Raymond Pulvénis's La Chasse aux Poissons, appeared in 1938 and 1940 respectively. Modern scuba diving had its genesis in the systematic use of rebreathers by Italian sport spearfishers during the 1930s. This practice came to the attention of the Italian Navy, which developed its frogman unit, which affected World War II. By 1940 small groups of people in California, USA had been spearfishing for less than 10 years. Most used imported gear from Europe, while innovators Charlie Sturgill, Jack Prodanovich, and Wally Potts invented and built innovative equipment for California's divers. In the aftermath of World War II, as the supply of the necessary raw materials improved and peacetime encouraged the development of public leisure pursuits and international tourism, the pioneers of modern spearfishing began serial production of underwater hunting equipment. Featured at length in Gilpatric's The Compleat Goggler, expatriate Russian Alec Kramarenko and American Charles Wilen founded their United Service Agency in the southern French city of Nice to manufacture a wide range of spearfishing gear, including diving masks with built-in snorkels enabling swimmers to breathe face down on the surface of the water for long periods while stalking their prey unencumbered by the constant oral presence of a mouthpiece.

During the 1960s, attempts to have spearfishing recognised as an Olympic sport were unsuccessful. Instead, two organisations, the International Underwater Spearfishing Association (IUSA) and the International Bluewater Spearfishing Records Committee (IBSRC), list world record catches by species according to rules to ensure fair competition. Spearfishing is illegal in many bodies of water, and some locations only allow spearfishing during certain seasons.

Conservation

Spearfishing has been implicated in local disappearances of some species, including the Atlantic goliath grouper on the Caribbean island of Bonaire, the Nassau grouper in the barrier reef off the coast of Belize and the giant black sea bass in California, which have all been listed as endangered. Modern spearfishing has shifted focus onto catching only what one needs and targeting sustainable fisheries. As gear evolved in the 1960s and 1970s spearfishers typically viewed the ocean as an unlimited resource and often sold their catch. This practice is now heavily frowned upon in prominent spearfishing nations for promoting unsustainable methods and encouraging taking more fish than is needed. In countries such as Australia and South Africa where the activity is regulated by state fisheries, spearfishing has been found to be the most environmentally friendly form of fishing due to being highly selective, having no by-catch, causing no habitat damage, nor creating pollution or harm to protected endangered species. In 2007, the Australian Bluewater Freediving Classic became the first spearfishing tournament to be accredited and was awarded 4 out of 5 stars based on environmental, social, safety and economic indicators.

Shore diving

Shore diving is perhaps the most common form of spearfishing and simply involves entering and exiting the sea from beaches or headlands and hunting around ocean structures, usually reef, but also rocks, kelp or sand. Usually shore divers hunt at depths of 5–25 metres (16–82 ft), depending on location. In some locations, divers can experience drop-offs from 5 to 40 metres (16 to 131 ft) close to the shore line. Sharks and reef fish can be abundant in these locations. In subtropical areas, sharks may be less common, but other challenges face the shore diver, such as managing entry and exit in the presence of big waves. Headlands are favoured for entry because of their proximity to deeper water, but timing is important so the diver does not get pushed onto rocks by waves. Beach entry can be safer, but more difficult due to the need to repeatedly dive through the waves until the surf line is crossed. Divers may enter from a relatively exposed headland, for convenience, then swim to a more protected part of the shore for their exit from the water. Shore dives produce mainly reef fish, but oceangoing pelagic fish are also caught from shore dives in some places, and can be specifically targeted.

Shore diving can be done with trigger-less spears such as pole spears or Hawaiian slings, but more commonly triggered devices such as spearguns. Most shore divers prefer compact railguns or Euro-style spearguns because they offer slim profiles, intuitive loading, and reliable accuracy.

Boat diving

Boats, ships, kayaks, or even jetski can be used to access offshore reefs or ocean structure. Man-made structures such as oil rigs and Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) are also fished. Sometimes a boat is necessary to access a location that is close to shore, but inaccessible by land. Methods and gear used for boat diving are similar to shore diving or blue water hunting, depending on the target prey. Boat diving is a worldwide activity. Hot spots include Mozambique, the Three Kings islands of New Zealand (yellowtail), Gulf of Mexico oil rigs (cobia, grouper) and the Great Barrier Reef (wahoo, dogtooth tuna). The deepwater fishing grounds off Cape Point, (Cape Town, South Africa) have become popular with trophy hunting, freediving spearfishers in search of Yellowfin Tuna.

Blue water hunting

Blue water hunting involves diving in open ocean waters for pelagic species. It involves accessing usually very deep and clear water and chumming for large pelagic fish species such as marlin, tuna, wahoo, or giant trevally. Blue water hunting is often conducted in drifts; the boat driver drops divers and allow them to drift in the current for up to several kilometres before collecting them. Blue water hunters can go for hours without seeing any fish, and without any ocean structure or a visible bottom the divers can experience sensory deprivation and have difficulty determining the size of a solitary fish. One technique to overcome this is to note the size of the fish's eye in relation to its body. Large specimens have a proportionally smaller eye.

The creation of the Australian Bluewater Freediving Classic in 1995 in northern New South Wales was a way of creating interest and promotion of this format of underwater hunting, and contributed to the formation of the International Bluewater Spearfishing Records Committee. The IBSRC formed in 1996, was the first dedicated organization worldwide, created by recognized world leaders in blue-water hunting, to record the capture of pelagic species by blue-water hunters.

Started in 2006 by Dennis Haussler, the Blue Water World Cup in La Ventana, BCS, Mexico has also greatly increased the popularity of the sport at a competitive level. Elite spearfishers from all over the world compete in a 4 day format that involves very selective spearing of pelagic species, with Wahoo, AmberJack, Dorado, Roosterfish, Marlin and Tuna being the target species. The diving is dynamic and challenging with depths that vary from 15 ft to over 100 ft.

Notably, some blue water hunters use large multi-band wooden guns and make use of breakaway rigs to catch and subdue their prey. If the prey is large and still has fight left after being subdued, a second gun can provide a kill shot at a safe distance. This is acceptable to IBSRC and IUSA regulations as long as the diver loads it himself in the water. Blue water hunting is conducted worldwide, but notable hot spots include Baja Mexico (yellowfin tuna, wahoo), Southern California (bluefin tuna), Tanzania (dogtooth tuna, wahoo and yellowfin tuna), Mozambique (dogtooth tuna, wahoo and giant turrum), South Africa (Yellowfin tuna, Spanish Mackerel, wahoo, marlin and giant turrum), Australia (dogtooth tuna, wahoo and Spanish Mackerel) and the South Pacific (dogtooth tuna).

Freshwater hunting

Many US states allow spearfishing in lakes and rivers, but most of them restrict divers to shooting only rough fish such as carp, gar, bullheads, suckers, etc. Some US states do allow the taking of certain gamefish such as sunfish, crappies, striped bass, catfish and walleyes. Freshwater hunters typically have to deal with widely varying seasonal changes in water clarity due to flooding, algae blooms and lake turnover. Midwestern and north central scuba divers go spearfishing under the ice in the winter.

In the summer the majority of freshwater spearfishers use snorkelling gear rather than scuba since many of the fish they pursue are in relatively shallow water. Carp shot by freshwater spearfishers typically end up being used as fertilizer, bait for trappers, or are occasionally donated to zoos.

Without diving

Spearfishing with a hand-held spear from land, shallow water or boat has been undertaken for thousands of years. The fisher must account for optical refraction at the water's surface, which makes fish appear higher in their line of sight than they are. By experience, the fisher learns to aim lower. Calm and shallow waters are favored for spearing fish from above the surface, as water clarity is of utmost importance. Many people who grew up on farms in the midwest U.S. in the 1940s-'60s recall going spearing for carp with pitchforks when their fields flooded in the spring. Spearfishing in this manner has some similarities to bowfishing.

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