The reason for the remark was that I'd just dived onto the water for about the tenth time in two days with a camera rolling to record the action as Graham attempted to be the fist person to fire a Satellite tag into a free swimming marlin. The trouble was the spear kept missing, not through any real fault of Grahams, but that didn't stop me giving him a bit of niggle.
Because we obviously didn't want to kill the marlin, (and the tag is worth about $7,000) the spear gun had to be low powered, and because of this we had to be within a meter or two of the marlin that were racing up on the teasers, we re getting close enough but the spear would curve because of the drag created by the bulky tag on the end of the spear shaft. Even so I was enjoying having marlin fizz past me and observe how they bite the lures and teasers up close, so close in fact that one swam right over me to get to a lure.
The resulting footage is amazing, in my opinion the best we've filmed yet.
But after dozens of marlin had come and gone with out a tag, there were eight fishos on board who were sitting out fishing time and getting a little bit restless, never mind the fact I had been sitting in a wetsuit from 7am to 6 pm for two days....so all the fisho's were grumbling the same line "Bludy Spearo, hurry up and get that tag in". Poor old Graham was feeling it, not that I offered any support, instead I chimed in with "That last marlin was so close to me I could have poked the tag in by hand"
But despite the jest this was a serious bit of research we were trying to carry out, if we could track the movements of a free tagged marlin we would be able to compare it with rod and reel caught marlin to determine whether the fight on rod and reel affects their behavior. So in between the frantic moments when packs of marlin came up on the teasers, we discussed how we could refine our technique. "If I had a normal spear gun I could nail one easily" Graham proclaimed. And I'm sure with a high power spear gun and a straight shooting spear it would be easy.
The marlin were concentrating on the teasers, totally oblivious to us, to shoot it with a spear gun would be like feeding a pig and apple and shooting it while it was eating it. It gave me some perspective into the mucho spearos that beat their chests and say "I've speared a marlin'. For the guys that swim around in the ocean and look for a marlin, then they spear it and haul it in I say ‘good on ya, you're a legend" But the spearos that need the skill of a game fishing crew to find a marlin, then to raise it on lures with gear and methods developed by anglers, you might say that would be the same as a fisherman getting a spearo to take his baited hook underwater and feed it to a fish.
Our discussion on spear fishing versus angling methods was lengthy and interesting, and there isn't space enough here to surmise. But what we both agreed that we got the best of both worlds when we were able to be in the environment of a marlin, and see it all fired up in attack made in a way that no angler could ever see from the surface. Then we had a challenging shot with a low powered gun and the fish was tagged and released just as many thousands of marlin have been tagged by anglers before.
So now it's been done, spearos now have the option of not being quite so bloody, instead tag and release is a real option, and a rewarding one at that. Keep an eye out for the spear tagging episodes in this series, they have some great footage and a very interesting angle.
Keep ‘em tight
Matt
