A 21 year old spearfisherman went missing at Otter reef on Monday off of Mission Beach.
Apparently he was trying to retrieve a speared fish which had gone into the coral about 10 minutes before.
The newspaper said that parts of his wetsuit,goggles,spear,fins,knife and spear were found on the bottom.
Condolences to his family.
I am also wondering if his death will actually be recorded as a shark fatality considering no one saw him taken?
I have always thought that it was dodgy spearing fish in FNQ, with the amount of sharks up that way.
Marty.
Yeah, I agree marty+jojo, especially if he was alone at the time. I'd be scared to spear fish anyway, but if I knew there were sharks around I wouldn't even consider going let alone by myself. I think having an armed look-out or two or ten would be a good idea.
I'm not saying he did anything wrong or anything and I'm not saying no one should spear-fish but I just think having a whole lot of carefullness out there is a good thing.
Condolences to his family. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Very terrible indeed.
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.-- Mark Twain"
This guy,also at Otter Reef, proved a nuisance by munching on a spanish mackeral I hooked.
Then he came up behind the boat after the kids threw some pilchards in the water and showed no fear even after I tried to poke him with an oar.
I've also lost spanish to Tigers on that reef and the one directly north(yamacutta reef).
Strangely enough quite a few blokes dive for crays and spearfish there.
Not me though.
Scott
Tigers can grow big, seen one many years ago when I was fishing of a charter boat "Sea Spray" off Hervey Bay outside the breaksea spit. Sea was relatively calm , buggar was close to 14ft sunbaking just below the surface, good stripes, one eye in the sky looking at me I guess as to where I was fishing. Sent some bait down and ye, it followed it, I had a fish on it then a few secs later, wham, what force, sunset drag up came up with 1/2 a coral trout, better than no coral trout. 1/2 for the shark and 1/2 for me, didn't need to tag that one that day to distinguish it from the rest of the catch.
Condolences to the family. Tragic.
The death will most certainly be recorded as a drowning - always the case. How far out does the reef start from mission beach - anyone know? That's a great pic disorderly!
cuzza
cuzza,
Otter reef starts about 50 clicks off Mission beach.
I wondered about the cause of death because I think the actual death toll from sharks is probably much higher.
But as there are no direct witnesses or as might be the case in many third world countries where no one really gives a shit anyway then the deaths may often not be directly attributed to shark attack.
Anyway from what I heard on wednesday, the young fella,who was out diving with his girlfriends old man had speared a fish which had reefed him and he had tried for a while to get the fish out but then just never resurfaced.
So in essence he was messing with a struggling,bleeding fish at the time.
Scott
Thanks for the info Scott. that certainly is a fair way offshore. Is there any reef within a kilometre of mission beach? And yeah, SO MANY deaths by sharks are not recorded as thus.
Cuzza
Very sad for family and friends, sincere sympathy and condolences to them all.
Serious spearos are fairly blase about sharks, many floating for miles along current lines bluewater hunting pelagics. Spearo charters fish the same reefs we would in places like PNG, Vanuatu, etc etc as well as remote offshore reefs out of FNQ, Swains etc.
Many spearos see sharks as being not much different to dogs, more a nuisance than a threat.
Personally, I see one, I'm outa there. After all, it's their ocean I'm swimming in, and they make the rules.
Last edited by nigelr; 09-02-2008 at 04:32 PM.
Yes,mate there is some reef directly off mission beach a km or less.Originally Posted by cuzzamundi
Can be speared from the beach (if you don't mind dragging a bag of bleeding fish behind you)but more commonly by boat,and some of the old geezers in their tinnies pull up the odd sweetlip or trout from there.
Often head out to Otter from Cardwell, and have lost many great fish to the monsters out there!
Anyone swimming round with dead fish hanging of them has some balls.
Very sad to hear
Jim
Well today when we were spearing out at bat reef we were talking about this and the other guy's i was out there with that are fairly experianced diver's/spearo's think that shallow water blackout was most likely the case with this poor guy.It'd be a fair guess that the shark's then took him afterwards.And yes we saw a few noah's but only small fella's for the short time i was in the drink.
Yeah Dan,
I've been thinking this all along.
I missed the news article this evening where his mate said what happened.
Very interesting Dan 5, sheds a whole new light on things.
SWB far more common than outright shark attack, could happen quite easily given the circumstance of trying to free a reefed fish.
Either way, very scary. Not much warning of SWB.
He was a nice bloke,shame.
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