dolphin fish

Went out to the fads yesterday with some  mates for some spearfishing and manged a 7kg dollie. there were only about 12 in the school to start with but the current was huge! you have about 15 second to drift from 100m before the fad till 30m after the fad, and only about a 4 second gap where the fish were shootable if you came close enough, the biggest in the school looked about 9kg and it had line hangning out of its mouth.

 

we also after doing about 5 or so drifts had another boat come in to fish the fads, very rude guys as they started abusing our boaty becuse the dive flag was down (probably fell down about 2 minutes before they came on the last drift) and then took a photo of our boat and started shouting how we are gonna get a fine for it? i wont if they know that legally speaking free divers arent actaully allowed to have the white and blue flag up :P anyway they then started to work the fad which we didnt mind as they waited for our drift first then did theirs and so on for a while but then they started doing drifts with us, and so their boat was within about 20m of me and my mate in the water, very dangerous stuff especially with a current like that.

all in all a good day and im keen to get back out there already, we dove 2 fads the club marine had dollies and the one closest to rotto had only baby yellow tail kings.

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soupster51's picture

Posts: 2724

Date Joined: 29/11/06

Good Fish

Mon, 2012-12-31 10:18

Nice fish. Sounds like you had an interesting day.....

 

To be honest with you the other boat was probably within their rights to be a little angry. If your flag wasn't up and they didn't know there were people in the water, and they ran over someone they would feel bad but it would have been your skippers fault. As for the 20 metres separation between boat and swimmer.... something maybe you could have discussed with them, especially if there was only two boats there. A two minute conversation would have had you on an equal understanding right from the start.

 

Good to see none one got hurt and you ended up with a feed for your efforts.

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before they were within even

Mon, 2012-12-31 10:41

before they were within even 100m my mate check the flag saw it was down and put i in the air towards them, then singalled 2  and pointed to where we were, they knew from the start we were diving and excatly where we were, then then came closer and started the abuse with us not saying anything

soupster51's picture

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Date Joined: 29/11/06

Rightio

Mon, 2012-12-31 11:35

Not very civil at all. Ratbags - as my late old man would say. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger - is another one he would have said.

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Brock O's picture

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Date Joined: 11/01/08

Nice Effort

Mon, 2012-12-31 12:16

 

And some nice fish for the table, Getting there is a mission let alone diving water that wide. Weather you had the flag up, down, accident or not, when your out that deep, some communication is all thats needed, not  abuse.

 Thanks for sharing 

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Date Joined: 21/02/08

Good to have a flag and a

Mon, 2012-12-31 12:43

Good to have a flag and a float at the FADs, just so you're extra visible.

There is no requirement for freedivers to have a dive flag up, but probably better to explain that to people than the other way around.

I think the worst current we have had at the FADs was about 3kn and its a real pain when your floatline goes the opposite side of the fad to yourself!

Great fish too!

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Date Joined: 01/05/09

yeah i dont usually use

Mon, 2012-12-31 13:04

yeah i dont usually use floats, but the current was much to strong to use one anyway, simon quniby guessed the current at around 5 knots

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Date Joined: 01/05/09

also here is a video of some

Mon, 2012-12-31 13:08

also here is a video of some of the dolphins we saw out there, there was hundreds !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IhhBc66XSgQ
JohnF's picture

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We had maybe 100 spinner

Mon, 2012-12-31 17:53

We had maybe 100 spinner dolphins around us today, spinning in the air, the works. Great to see!

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Boston Whaler 235 Conquest......getting the flogging it was built for.

Posts: 26

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 Keen to have a crack at

Fri, 2013-01-04 13:09

 Keen to have a crack at spearing one myself hoping to head out Monday is there any way to get my hands on a fad chart at late notice? 

Notorious's picture

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Date Joined: 23/02/12

 Nice fish Jacques

Sat, 2013-01-05 14:42

 Nice fish Jacques

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