I could feel my body reaching its limit, I knew I only had a few more dives left in me. I fought to keep from shivering and tried to stay relaxed as I waited just below the thermocline for a carp to come into view. Despite my efforts to insight curiosity by rustling my fingers on the rocky bottom nothing had appeared out of the green haze, and now my body was signaling that it was time to go up. I slowly pushed myself off the bottom and began to kick for the surface. Nearing halfway up, the unmistakable shape of a lone carp appeared out of the gloom coming straight towards me. Slowing my kicks to hover mid water, I raised my gun, and lined up the shot. My eagerness for both fish and oxygen got the better of me and I took aim too quickly spooking the fish, it turned away from me, I fired. I watched in despair as my shot landed low and towards the tail, the softest part of the fish. I let the line loose as I broke the surface and watched in fear as the carp flipped itself over nearly tearing the shaft loose. My fear became reality, knowing I had mere minutes to spare I gently pulled up on the line and the fish tore off. That fear soon turned to anger and frustration as I watched the fish disappear back towards the bottom. Though I had watched several other fish tear off throughout the day I felt as though this one carried my chances of placing in the tournament away with it. I would learn later that while losing this fish may have cost me second place, the one I would shoot on the next dive was all it took to get me into third.
Three years ago is when it all began for me. I had no idea what spearfishing was, yet now it occupies a huge portion of my life. My intro into spearfishing co-insides in a way with my love story. I met my husband Ryan at the very beginning of 2014. He is the one that opened my eyes to the sport that has changed my life.
When we first began dating I listened to Ryan describe his passion for the sport and I felt pressure to like it as well. Growing up I loved fishing and swimming so putting the two together seemed like a simple task. At first everything was frustrating. From trying to put a wet suit on for the first time, to nose bleeds due to equalization problems in my sinuses. There is one experience I will never forget. It was my first time diving in Fish Lake, Utah, a mountain lake at nearly 9,000 ft. in elevation. It was maybe my second time ever attempting to spearfish. I remember being extremely cold and uncomfortable and I had no idea why anyone would want to put themselves through that. It was shortly after having these thoughts that Ryan swam up to me and pointed out that the zipper on my rented scuba wetsuit had come undone and I had been swimming the entire time with the frigid 50-degree water flowing freely down my back. By the end of the day I had successfully landed two small fish and a few approving looks from my boyfriend, but I wasn’t yet convinced it was all worth it. After all, my first experiences spearfishing were a little short of amazing.
I don’t recall exactly when the sport changed from something I did to impress my boyfriend to something I really enjoyed. I guess it was when I was finally able to hold my breath long enough and dive quietly enough to really start to see and shoot fish. My love for the sport only increased as Ryan and I went to local competitions. Being one of few women in the sport and really one of the only ones in Utah brought out my competitive side. It gave me this huge competitive drive to want to beat the men. This competitive spirit fueled my want to keep practicing and getting better. I participated in many regional competitions put on by the Rocky Mountain Spearfishing Association. Including the 2015 Freshwater National’s at the Key Hole Reservoir in Wyoming. However, the biggest turning point for me was at the USOA National Championships in 2016 held in Beaver Lake, Arkansas.
As before mentioned I had a real difficulty equalizing. I was unable to dive more than 15-20 feet because of it. I tried watching videos on different methods and purchasing vented earplugs to see if anything would help. Most of the time I would have to swallow to equalize and half the time that didn’t work so I would have to go back to the surface mid dive. I don’t know the reason but while competing in the 2016 nationals I made a dive that changed it all. At the bottom of my dive I was having difficulty equalizing as always when I heard a loud pop in both of my ears. I have never been more terrified. I was waiting for some sort of pain because I was sure I had ruptured my eardrums by not equalizing properly. The pain never came. When I came up from that dive I cautiously waited a while before breathing up and diving again. I tried equalizing and it worked! No struggle, no having to try and swallow to relieve the pressure. I could equalize as easily as everyone had described I should be able to. This couldn’t have come at a better time because Ryan and I did well enough in this tournament to be invited to compete in the 2017 World Freshwater Spearfishing Championships. Unfortunately, many of the woman who had planned to dive were unable to so, there was not an official women’s division, but if there were I would have placed 1st. This was a huge confidence booster for me.
As I continued to get into the sport I was able to interact with more women and I realized a lot of women that spearfished were born into it, or are like me and met a man that spear fished. It was after doing so well in the 2016 nationals tournament that I decided this is something I don’t just enjoy. It is something that I want to make my own mark in. To do this I am always keeping up with the spearfishing records in Utah. I currently hold the record for striped bass and channel catfish. I am also looking to get my name on the world record books soon. Until then I have been focused on becoming a better overall free diver and spear fisher women.
From 2016 to 2017 I have gone from diving 15-20 feet to diving as deep as 50 feet. This was a huge benefit for me in the 2017 World Championships. I also felt like I had an advantage going into the tournament because except for a couple of attempts on charters in California I’ve really only dove in freshwater. Although I wanted to be in the best shape I could, and be prepared as much as possible for the tournament, my everyday life seemed to always get in the way. I would try to plan days to get out to the water or to the gym, but my job required me to put in a lot of extra hours. So, when the times came to train I was already exhausted or was called back into work. It is safe to say that I felt extremely unprepared when the tournament came around.
Ryan and I lived only 2 hours away from Lake Mead, but as before mentioned my work made it nearly impossible for us to go scout. My husband was able to go once with other members of the US teams in November and the both of us only once more before tournament week. When we first arrived at the hotel and chatted with divers that had already been there, we found that the wind had been so strong not many people had really been out scouting. This was a little encouraging but also scary because if it continued we wouldn’t be able to scout either. Luckily the first day we went out to scout the winds were calm enough that we could head out.
We spent the two days before the tournament scouting tournament waters. The both of us are used to fresh water and the overall tendencies of the common carp, so we decided to focus our attention on finding striped bass. A fish that had got the better of us in past competitions. We did this by trying to find what environments they were typically in and how they acted in this particular lake. Day one scouting was underwhelming. It seemed everywhere we dove there were no fish, not even the famously intrusive carp seemed to be lurking about. Our hopes grew towards the end of the day when Ryan and I both dove on separate schools of striper on a couple of white rocky islands. Right after we found them the winds picked up and we were getting tired so we decided to try similar areas the next day.
Scouting day two started out slowly as well, finding little to no fish anywhere we went. Again, we were lucky enough to find a couple of decent spots towards the end of the day. One spot that was really heavy with carp, and then another that seemed to have a decent amount of striper. That night Ryan and I sat down to write our game plan for the next two tournament days. I will admit and Ryan could attest to it that I was not very helpful. In the few years I have spear fished I have learned that fish are unpredictable. It is true that they tend to stay in the same kind of environments, but that doesn’t mean they will stay in the same spots, and there was a lot of lake we weren’t able to cover. So, I wasn’t exactly optimistic and I didn’t know if others had found as few decent spots as we did.
Before I knew it, it was day one, Striper day. I felt overwhelmed and not as calm as I would have liked to. The realization of the level of competition we were up against really started to hit me that morning. Seeing fellow divers walking through the same halls and talking with them and reading all their amazing bios made me feel like an out of place amateur regardless of whatever confidence I had previously felt. When the horn blew at 8:30 am and all the boats headed out, the adrenaline hit. We headed to the white rocky islands we had found the first scouting day and prayed that the faster boats weren’t headed to the same place. It was so weird to feel relief as boats went certain ways and panic as other boats headed the same direction as us. As we neared our predetermined spot we noticed a couple of boats were already in that same area, but not exactly where we wanted to be. To our dismay one of those boats re-positioned on the spot we wanted right as we pulled up. They made it very clear that they were not going anywhere else and we were too late.
We settled on a similar smaller island nearby that we had seen a couple striper on while scouting, hoping that the larger schools may now miraculously be there. Not getting to our spot first and the un-sportsman’s like conduct of the other competitors got me into an even worse mind set than I had been in earlier that morning. I could not seem to calm down. The last time I had dove this island I saw a striper and a few carp my first dive down. I dove down to about 25 feet the same as I had before, trying my best to relax. I remember hitting bottom and wanting so badly to see any sign of a fish. Hoping that if I wanted it enough a fish would swim up to me. Sadly, that is how the remainder of the day went a lot of wishful thinking and hoping, but no fish. I saw less than 4 glances of striped bass all day, and only one was within shooting range. I took a shot on that one. It was more a shot of desperation then a calm calculated shot, and I knew that as I watched my shaft knock only a couple of silvery scales off the fish and then it swim as fast as it could away from me. When it came time to head back there was only one fish in our cooler, it was the only striper Ryan had seen that day, and I had no fish to show for my efforts.
Pulling up to the docks to go to weigh ins day one, my head was hung low and I was very disappointed in how the day had gone. My spirits were raised a bit after hearing that men and women from all over the world were in the situation as me with no fish. If a diver had gotten as little as 1 to 3 fish they were doing good, any more than that and they were on top. What I enjoyed most that day was standing side by side with my husband listening to other divers tell the stories about their efforts as those that were lucky enough to find fish that day weighed them in.
I was much more optimistic about the second day of the tournament as it was Carp day. I have been seeing and shooting the common carp since the very beginning of my spearfishing journey. We had also found a couple of spots while scouting that I had cleverly named carptopia. The plan was go to so called Carptopia located in a murky cove in Las Vegas bay, and if it was taken by other divers head to Carptopia two, a high spot by some cliffs. When the horn blew on day two I did my best to not get caught up in my thoughts like I had the day before. I told myself that if anyone could shoot a butt load of carp it was me, after all slaying carp is what I have been doing in my spare time for years. As the boats raced off to their destinations I did my best to keep my face straight ahead and not worry about where everyone else was headed. To our surprise after seeing that several boats had come the same direction as us, no one was in our little murky bay. My mindset and my mood were in a completely different place as I made my first dive, and this time I came up with a fish on my shaft. We spent the first half of the day slaughtering carp in that cove. The best visibility the entire time being 5 feet, but that is just like home for us. I left the cove with 21 carp and Ryan with 36 carp. We started off on a high and knew that if we could keep up the pace we were sure to be in a good spot. Our hopes were crushed as we went from place to place. Areas that were just days before heavy with carp were now desolate. Ryan was only able to pick up 9 more and I was only able to get 4. By the end of carp day, I was a whole new level of exhausted. After diving 4 days consecutively for 6 or more hours and not being in shape my body had had enough. It was because of this that weigh ins for day two are a bit of a blur for me. I spent most of it trying to recuperate and rehydrate my body. I do remember however watching as name after name and score after score was written on the score board. I realized first as they put other women’s scores up mine own was very close, and then that other mixed teams were falling below mine and my husbands combined score.
I may not have physically shown it in the moment but when I realized my husband and I had placed third as a mixed double team I was ecstatic. That was followed by even more excitement when I realized I had placed third individually out of all the women. The scores above and below mine being only one point away from my own. It was in that moment when I finally felt that I belonged in this group of divers and that I can make an impact as a female diver in the sport. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to compete in the first ever Fresh Water World Spearfishing Championships, and proud to be the highest scoring woman diver from the United States. I hope that I can continue to make my mark as a woman in the sport and support my fellow woman divers in doing the same. I met so many amazing divers and people and the lessons I learned from them are invaluable. I look forward to so many more experiences to come.
Shelby Peterson
