When your sport takes you under the water, a must- have on your equipment list is a watch specifically designed for free diving.

Most South African spearos started out diving for crayfish. The diving technique that is adopted here is ‘bounce diving’: short surface times with a lot of dives that range from 40 seconds to 1 min 20. This is all fine and well when you are diving in shallower water and your dive times are not too long. However, when you start to spear or hunt crayfish in deeper water this style of diving can lead to unnecessary fatigue and will not help improve your deeper and longer dives.

In our hunt for big doggies we were certainly well rewarded…

I first heard of St. Lazarus Bank some 12 years ago from Sibylle Riedmiller, my neighbour in Tanga, Tanzania. The bank is situated 50 nautical miles off the Quirimbas Archipelago on the northern Mozambican coast. Sibylle, a world renowned ecologist and marine conservationist who in the early 1990’s created Chumbe Island Marine Park (the world’s first privately owned marine park), spoke to me of diving among countless baitfish, sharks, and large tuna in the offshore bank’s crystal clear waters. I was enthralled and St. Lazarus quickly became my ‘Mecca’ for my pilgrimage around the world in search of top spearfishing destinations.

One of the great attractions of spearfishing around  Inhaca Island is the variety and number of spots to dive. From deep blue water spots and big ledges coming out of deep water, to great spots for reef fish and wrecks scattered around the area… Inhaca has everything. The only problem is when and how to dive the spots properly in order to be effective.

The whole Inhaca area is governed by tidal moments in and out of the Bay of Maputo. This means that you could get to a spot the one day and it’s cooking… only to find it as dead as a desert the next. So every spot needs to be worked according to the tides. Once you have the tides and currrents worked out, you will be able to plan what species and reef you are going to hunt at different times of the day and week.

Much of the time, spearfishing is all about location. Sometimes, the difference between a productive dive and and an unproductive one is not a question of “how?”, but rather, “where?”. Growing up, I would often see experienced divers coming out of the water with far better fish than I did, even though we were diving in the same area. I thought these guys must just be amazingly skilled divers. I have learnt, however, that all the skill in the world will not help if you are not diving on the right spots that hold fish. Not knowing your location can put you at a huge disadvantage.

This is why guys with local knowledge will often out-dive spearos who are visiting an area. It’s often that specific small crack, or knowing to find certain indicator fish on a section of reef, that will make all the difference. If you dive an area a lot, you will eventually have the reef mapped out, and you learn where the fish hold up. Over time, you learn where certain fish are more likely to come through.

It all started back in November 2009, when my wife and I visited Madagascar for a belated honeymoon. We fell in love with the place, and because of the nature and flexibility of our work (I am an offshore commercial diver and Catherine is a wildlife artist) we decided that returning to spend some extended time in the country would definitely be an option.

So here we are now, and enjoying every moment of life in Madagascar. It does have its challenges, but when you think about it, no matter where in the world you’re living, there are always obstacles, and solutions that need to be found. Traveling here was a life’s journey in itself. After many months of preparation, major help from numerous friends and family and two very dubious boat trips, we are finally settled in a tropical paradise. Fortunately we have rented and are looking after the house of a friend on Nosy Komba Island (a friend who helped us out tremendously with local knowledge and adjusting to the ins and outs of Madagascan life).

A recent discussion on the USM forum regarding reelguns vs conventional buoyline setups sparked some interesting topics, one being ‘How to attach your shooting line to your reel line’. Traditionally, clips were used in the past, but as they often snag your line and make a noise, spearfishermen in the know have progressed to using a simple Quick Release knot to secure the 2 lines.

One of the guys posted a very informative pdf showing how to tie the Quick Release knot. This was the same standard knot I had been using for some time without fail. However, just recently I discovered a different variation of the knot, which is superior.

The knot may not be as simple as the standard Quick Release knot, but it forms a neater knot and tightens up easier when tied. I can hear my grandfather’s words to me as a youngster tying fishing traces: “A neat knot is a good knot.” This saying has always stayed with me, reinforcing my 2 basic rules by which I judge the value of a knot: how easy the knot comes together when tied, and how neat the final knot is.