Killing Fish – A freedivers take on spearfishing

‘STRAIGHT SHOOTER’

(First published in DIVESITE Issue 3, 2011 with photographs by Roger Horrocks, Jean Marie Ghislain and Jean Treason – please read updated thoughts at bottom of article.)

It was a choppy day off South-West reef in the Cape Point Nature Reserve. The shore entry was a little hairy and I thought I was going to rip my smoothskin wetsuit for sure crabbing over the barnacled rocks.

Swimming out through some crashing surf with a speargun in hand is very different from my normal shimmying out between sets.

The spear got tangled in the kelp, the kelp got tangled in my snorkel, and my thoughts were already tangled around, ‘why am I doing this again?

You see, I am a freediver.

I don’t kill fish.

Killing Fish – A freedivers take on spearfishing

So what am I doing inside the reserve on a Sunday with a loaded speargun you may ask?

It all started over dinner a few nights earlier with friends when somebody asked me whether I spearfish, ‘of course not!’

I snorted, ‘I love fish!’ to which one of my friends timidly replied, ‘but you eat fish’. My fork stopped halfway to my mouth and I looked at the piece of white meat on my fork, deliciously prepared with lemon, fresh thyme and butter.

I have no idea where this fish comes from, how it was caught and if any other ocean dwellers were injured in the harvesting of this dinner.

Human beings are physiologically adapted for freediving. We have an inner seal living inside us that wakes up and guides us when we take one breath, and dive.

We are ocean dwellers, if only we choose to return.

Sadly, whether it be terrestrial or oceanic, we are a species not known for taking care of it’s environment.

Having dived in many of this blue planet’s vast oceans, I have seen the decrease of life at sea.

I am a loud and sometimes eloquent advocate of ocean conservation, be it whales, sharks, dolphins, seals, coral reefs or fish… but here I am, completely unaware of where my dinner came from.

So that one simple ‘but you eat fish’ sees me tangled in kelp, armed in an ocean I’ve never before seen as a hunting ground. I take a deep breath and dive down, the fairyland of purple and pink urchins, kelp trunks swaying in the surge… and fish. I love fish. I love watching fish go about their simple watery lives, opening and closing their mouths as if in constant silent conversation. The wary breams scatter as I dive, but they soon grow curious of the visitor and circle back for a look.

‘I HAVE A GUN! SWIM AWAY!’ I feel like yelling at them. But they calmly swim up to me, around me. Stupid fish. I swim back up and take a deep breath. ‘Why didn’t you shoot it?’ my buddy asks, ‘there were a couple of size ones down there’. How do I explain to a seasoned spearo that the fish looked me in the eye, that I feel like I know that fish, that we’ve met before. ‘I was too far away’, I answer lamely. We both laugh, the fish was basically sitting on the tip of my spear.

Spearfishing is an age-old activity where man lived off the sea, hunting with primitive spears and home-made goggles for survival. The sport has developed into a specialised practice with effective spearguns, long fins and camouflage suits. In many countries it is against regulation to spearfish using a scuba tank, and this is also the case in South Africa.

In some parts of America it is legal to spearfish on scuba, while in the Bahamas it is illegal to use a speargun but legal to use a hand spear. So in South Africa, to be a good spearfisherman, you need to be a good freediver. But, as I realised floating above the kelp, my speargun dangling limply from my wrist- being a good freediver, is not enough to be a good spearfisherman.

If a restaurant can’t answer me on those counts, I won’t eat it. Through the WWF SASSI lists where fish are classed as on the green, orange or red lists, it’s become easy to make informed choices in restaurants and supermarkets as well. If it’s not your style to learn freediving and spearfishing because you love fish, you can make sure to pester fish retailers about their suppliers and make a conscious choice.

The great thing about spearing your own fish, is you hold all that knowledge in your hand.

Now it’s just a matter of being able to look a fish in the eye and kill it. I’m still not sure if I can do that again. Can I really call myself a spearo if I’ve only ever shot one fish?

UPDATE:

Since writing this piece in 2011, I have come to realise many things… here’s 4:

1. I am not firstly and foremostly a freediver, I am an ocean lover and conservationist, freediving is my tool.

2. I am doubtful of whether sustainable fisheries truly exist anymore. In my experience of traveling around the world and freediving all the oceans since 2011 is that what the ocean needs is for us to not extract anything. Might sound radical (I know) but so are the empty oceans I have seen and the trawler nets, long lines and ghost nets I have swum alongside.

3. I shot that one fish – I ate it. And that was the last fish I ever shot, or ate.

4. In today’s world, I am not sure one can be an environmentally minded person and still eat mass produced animal products or seafood… food for thought?

KELP DRONE PIC: Steve Benjamin, my good friend I shot that first and last fish with, who has subsequently also stopped eating fish and laid down his gun… now shooting amazing photos and videos.

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