Spearfishing is next level.
I love good old-fashioned bass fishing. You could say that I’m pretty obsessed with it, and I try to get out on the water as much as possible. Spearfishing, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal. Whereas bass fishing tends to be more of a relaxing, peaceful endeavor (aside from tournament-level fishing), spearfishing is kind of an adrenaline junkie’s form of catching fish.
Spearfishing is arguably the most primal, adrenaline-pumping way to catch a fish. Essentially underwater bowhunting, it requires you to get up close and personal with the fish in their own backyard… which is usually the ocean.
Beginners usually start with a simple pole spear (a long fiberglass or carbon pole with a rubber band you pull back like a slingshot). When you’re ready to upgrade, you move to a speargun, which uses heavy rubber bands to fire a metal shaft with lethal accuracy. You also generally use a low-volume mask (so you don’t waste precious air equalizing the pressure), long freediving fins to kick through the water efficiently, and a wetsuit to keep you from freezing or getting shredded by coral.
While you can spearfish on SCUBA gear in some places (like Florida), the real purists do it freediving. That means one single breath of air. You dive down to the reef on the lookout for a grouper, hogfish, or snapper. It requires good lung capacity, total calmness, and the stealth of a ninja… not for the faint of heart.
A Terrifying Close Call
As I said in the beginning, it’s an intense way to fish, but this dude proved why it can be downright dangerous if you’re not on top of your game. When you’re freediving in the ocean, a lot can go wrong… but getting run over by a boat? That’s about as wrong as it can go.
The man is seen swimming around at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Honolulu, Hawaii, with his speargun in hand. He decides to head up to the surface for a breath of air. When our diver pops his head out of the water, a big ol’ boat is coming straight at him… FAST.
The man dives down and gets below the boat just in the nick of time, narrowly missing both the hull and the prop. As he resurfaces, he confirms to the boater that he is okay, still trying to grasp the fact that he nearly just died. An important thing to note is that the spearfisherman takes the blame for diving without a buoy, saying that he usually has one, but he lost it in the current last week. Take notes, people… don’t forget your buoy when you’re diving like that. Even on my home lake here in Wisconsin, scuba divers will dive with a buoy so boats can clearly see that someone is under the water.
In a rather hilarious turn of events, he invited the guy who almost ran him over to church:
“Hey, would you wanna study the Bible or come to church at all?”
Gotta love it… living on mission at all times. He went on to say that he and his wife run a campus ministry at the University of Hawaii. Spearfishing and spreading the Gospel in Hawaii… what a rad dude.
He explained in more detail why the incident was entirely his fault:
“This is why you always dive with a buoy. My buoy got swept away with the current last week and I had scheduled to pick one up tonight; however, I went for a short, shallow reef dive thinking I’d be okay. Bad decision to dive in a high-traffic area.
As I was hunting Mu and Uhu, I hear a boat coming. I should have stayed under the water but shoot up to the surface to get eyes on it. Unfortunately, the boat at that time was already within 5 yards of me headed straight towards me. I yell ‘Ahh’ (at the same time trying to inhale) as I push off the boat to get away from the center where I knew the propeller would be. Even though boats are supposed to go around the channel marker, I accept 100% responsibility since I wasn’t using a dive buoy.
Luckily God was looking out for me. Only my fin was damaged. Always dive with a buoy. Psalms 121.”
God was certainly watching him that day.
