Dive Pacific 175 Dec2020 Jan 2021

S pearos notebook
Spearfishing Nationals Perfect!
with Jackson Shields
Every sport has found 2020 tricky to navigate and for the New Zealand Spearfishing
Nationals it was no different. This year the event was planned for Easter to be based
out of Omaha for the first time ever. Easter often offers great diving with clear water,
high fish numbers and nice weather, so it was an exciting prospect. Of course COVID
put an end to that. 2020 looked written off until an AGM of Spearfishing NZ voted a
national competition was still wanted.
The revised date was Labour
weekend in October, not
known as a good time for
weather or conditions. With
preparation rushed and a shortened
event, participant numbers
were lower than normal but still
more than enough with the best
spear fishers congregating from
around New Zealand.
Unbelievably the weather for the
event was absolutely perfect with
flat seas and clear conditions.
With such great weather and
access to lots of big boats, the
whole of the Hauraki Gulf was
available for the competition.
Miraculously the forecast was
again for two incredible days, so
the Mokohinaus were selected for
the competition area. This was
thought inconceivable prior to
the competition as it is a fair way
offshore and the weather doesn’t
always play ball.
Reduced fish list
Competitions in New Zealand
have changed with the times,
and for these nationals the fish
waste, minimum shark attention
and virtually no bycatch.
Spearfishing is arguably one of
the best ways to harvest fish as
we are can be so selective; we
take only what we want. Without
the use of burley and every pair
having to dive and swim in the
same stretch of coastline, it can
be challenging for divers to get
certain species, especially if they
are spooked.
…We struggled throughout the day seeing other species like
snapper in abundance though they were moving around
midwater making them difficult to approach…
Little Barrier
The Junior’s and Women’s was
held on the Saturday. With light
winds forecast Little Barrier was
chosen. Each junior and woman
competing has a safety diver
swimming along throughout the
competition and I was asked to
swim with one of the women.
The water was beautifully clear
and flat calm, with good scope
along the weed-edges and
shallows to hunt for butterfish
and snapper. Some great fish
were speared with the biggest
snapper coming in at 6.8kg
gutted and gilled! A very nice
fish!
The Open competition was
scheduled for the Monday and
Tuesday - everyone was given
a day’s rest after the Junior’s
and Women’s – and some of
the juniors and women were to
compete as well in the two day
event.
list was reduced to the most
sought after eating species. Plus,
you were not allowed to use
burley or gut your fish during
competition to ensure minimal
Plenty of fish leading up
Starting gun fires
Day One was held on the inside
of Burgess Island group in an
area about 2 km long marked out
with large buoys and dive flags.
All the boats park up together
and once the starting gun fires
all the pairs swim off for six
hours to try and collect the fish
species on the list.
Conditions were fantastic -
12-15m visibility and lots of fish.
Me and dive buddy Paul picked
up some nice fish early on. The
difficulty of the reduced fish list
was that we were encountering
a lot of the same species; lots of
pink mao mao, koheru, kingfish,
but we already had our quota of
these. (One only kingfish, or two
koheru, and pink mao mao).
Disqualified…
So we struggled throughout
the day seeing other species
28 Dive New Zealand | Dive Pacific