Maiden spearing trip - Havana and Palm I.

[Mozza]

Well,

I've finally got the first spearing trip under the belt and my body feels like its been thru a washing machine. I've got teensy muscles in places I never knew I had - that's what happens when you do underwater yoga for 6 hours I guess.

Results? We tried hard and having a local die hard spearo in the boat as guide and mentor wasn't going to convince the fish to come out and play unfortunately but, at least I shot the old 'woody' 4 or 5 times in battle and even stuck a legal tuskie briefly before he got off.

I concentrated on looking for crays and tho' the juvvys were easy to find, no luck on a bigger model.

Ol' mate shot a small trout and a nice red throat that he kindly donated and which we had for tea last night. Yum!

No pics sorry - nothing spectacular really.

Ground-wise, we hit Fly I (the rock next to Havana) twice, a bay on Great Palm, Barber I. (for Spaniards), some rock/bommie country near Barber and some clearwater mangroves nearby. Vis ranged from around 4m to 8m at times. Sh@t myself once when I came face to face with a multi-strand 'box' jellyfish which wasn't, but clearly of the same family. Diving the mangroves was a blast - crystal clear in a shallow bay, no creek with schools of GT, Moses, Dart (aimed but they were way too fast), batfish, gar, whitebait. Expected to see at least a couple of Jack but none forthcoming.

Weather: copped a hammering heading out from Balgal with squally rain but then the wind steadily died all day. Just a light ripple on a rolling swell coming in. Hooked up on a nice long tail on the 6 kilo barra spinning rod coming home but the knot let go after it had had some big runs. DOLT!! Easy 10kg I reckon.

Great day.

Mozza

Cheers
Mozza

[cuzzamundi]

Sounds like a great session there Mozza. Do you suit up for the boxies/irukandji? Whenever I dive north of seventeen seventy I make sure every inch of my skin is covered. Mate got done by an Irukandji off Cairns, and was suited up with only his cheeks bare, and guess what came along...Irukandji. Five days of absolute hell. Scarred him for life he reckons. Morphine doesnt even touch the pain, so yeah, I'm bloody paranoid. Nothing beats a good session up there though.

Cuzza

[Mozza]

Not enough.

Felt V. naked with head, cheeks and neck bare so, I was extra vigilant. The deckie had a hood that left his cheeks bare. It'd be hard to copy your cheeks - ya'd need a shroud to fit around the outside of you mask?

One of my mates reckons an old stocking works okay.

Mozza

[cuzzamundi]

Yeah mate old stocking is the way to go. Look like a freak, or a bank robber, but it works.

Cuzza

[Scott nthQld]

well, at least you came back alive, it would've been rough as I thought, I was nearly going to ring you and see if you made it back in one peice.

Good to get that first trip out of the way though, and at least you got a feed out of it too, well done

[fatovich]

It's a damn nice spot around havannah and the palms, we were there at new years and i went for a dip at albino but i could barely see the end of my gun so called it off.

Juno bay is also pretty good, the channel between fantome and orpheus can produce some good fish. We saw a manta ray there one day which was pretty cool. Watch for the green zones on orpheus though.

[boney-leg]

the channel between fantome and orpheus can produce some good fish.

I had a yarn with fisheries when they were over as I always thought that half the channel was green. They claimed it was all green.