Yesterday was by far the best spearing day I have ever had. I woke up at 11 only to find it weather was heavenly, not a cloud in sight. I checked the surf cam for Cronulla and there was not a wave in sight. There hasn't been a day like this for a long time so I geared up and was in the water by 11:30.
I jumped in the water, gun in one hand and frozen burley block in the other, a nice size trevally swam right in front of me, I took a lazy shot with my left hand and missed.
I continued to swim around venturing out deeper than I have ever dived before and noticing an improvement in my breath hold.
I swam to my whiting spot only to find it was covered in loose weed, it was brushing on my face and it felt really uncomfortable so I powered on out of there and into deeper water. I was in new territory, what I used to think was all sand turned out to be a nice little reef with lots of gutters, caves and fish! I saw two huge red mowies swimming in and out of this cave, so I hung around for 10mins waiting for them to come out. In that 10mins I noticed that there were lots of nice fish swimming in and not coming out. I dived down and continued to swim along the ledge when I saw my arch nemesis from the other day, a red rock cod, this time the safety was off and he copped a 5 pronged face lift at point blank. With no float and no chance of stashing it in my wetty I headed into shore with my 1st red rock cod.
Back out again searching the gutters Leigh when a nice sized trumpeter swam directly in front of us, he fell back as I powered after it...it seems fish can swim faster that I do. Disappointed I continued to search for more prey, soon after a nice little goat swam past and I plugged it.
There was lots of boats and jet ski's about so I was a bit weary when I'd hear the motors underwater, a couple of jet ski's came real close to hitting us calling us "f***ing idiots" (Michael shakes his head)
After that I put the goat in my wetty and reloaded. I then proceeded to chase another mowie in to a cave only to find what I thought was a grouper. I went up for air but something didn't feel right so I swam down to take another look, on closer inspection it wasn't a grouper at all but a huge black drummer! It looked at me and I replied with my six-inch cluster! Back at the surface I let out a yell of excitement, Leigh swam over to see what all the commotion was about. I told him I'd shot something big and to watch as I pulled it out of the cave, my heart was beating so fast I couldn't hold my breath long enough to get to the cave. Eventually I relaxed and pulled out the biggest fish I've ever speared a 3.5kg black drummer!
My day couldn't get any better...so I thought. We decided it was a time for a location change so we got our fish and walked through a crowded Cronulla, I couldn't help but smile as people's heads turned to the sight of my fish. We geared up for round two, I loaded my gun and put my head underwater only to see a whiting eat pranger. Into the wetty it went. After about an hour I didn't really see anything else worth shooting so I headed back thinking to my self "I never see flathead anymore, I wish I could spear one". About 10 meters from the beach I saw a flatty bury itself in the sand, my prayers had been answered, I took my time to line it up...and fired! Headshot! I'd finally shot a flatty, as I pulled it out of the sand I realized it wasn't a flatty but a big flatty (2.5kg), things kept getting better and better. As I dragged it onto the beach and the people stared to flock over, I spent the rest of the afternoon telling the crowds of people of my perfect day.
By Michael Takach.
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