The first ever World Freshwater Spearfishing championships at Lake Mead, Nevada Las Vegas – what an experience and one I will never forget!
When emails started circulating in early January about the event, my dad (Joe) and myself thought it would be a truly amazing opportunity to represent our country, Australia – As a mixed team together along with being categorised as individuals. Both of us had never dived a fresh water competition before and to hear we could comfortably dive in water that at times is 2-3M visibility and not have to worry about sharks and other toothy critters – we were in! Along with the talk of shooting up to 20-30 stripers, 60-100 carp this trip certainly got us hyped up! Teams from all over the world were coming together for this event, so it was one not to miss!
Dad, myself and our two friends from Victoria, Craig and Bree Fox (another farther daughter duo) taking part in the worlds; arrived 3 days ahead of the event to familiarise ourselves with the lakes environment. We shared a 26ft deck boat out of Callville Bay marina which was drama free, easy to get in/out of and did all we needed for this event. We noticed the marina had a healthy population of good sized striper especially. We were soon to find out the reasoning behind the first rule – “You can not dive with in 1/2 a mile of a harbour “ This certainly ruined our game plan for day 1, so scouting it was.
“Warm water, clear and fishy”…lets break this down. Warm? The weather yes but the water, not so much. I found the water varied at different ends of the Lake but thought a full 3mm or even a 5mm wetsuit would have been suitable. I found the temp to be about 17 – 19 degrees varying from places and depth. The Australian team got sponsored 2mm wetsuits for the event from Adreno Spearfishing, excellent however absolutely freezing for the lake water! I was extremely fortunate to have also packed my 3mm wetsuit top that was more comfortable in the conditions. Taking in to consideration we were only scouting, not shooting and constantly re- loading. Although the water was freezing for me, during carp day in spots where I was shooting and loading constantly, body heat was constant.
The visibility did vary, however it didn’t matter too much given there are no harmful predators (as hard as that was to get my head around) it was between 3-7 meters for us.
Fish life during our scouting days were seen in areas that held plenty of carp, even in locations we didn’t expect. They just showed up out of the murk form every angle possible. Not being use to diving comfortably in dirty water, they at times came as a bit of a shock appearing so quickly. There was defiantly no shortage of carp, thats for sure! And the possibility of shooting from 60-100 seemed possible. The stripers on the other-hand seemed like they knew what was up and all migrated to the marina for the week. I dove up and down all day for three consecutive days from depths of 15m right up to 5m searching for a single striper to familiarise myself with but they just didn’t want to play game. I personally didn’t see a single striper before the competition, although Craig and Dad had found a school of them which held up to 6 in various places.
May 19th and it was carp day!! It was time to pull the trigger on some of the cheeky carp that decided to hang around on our dives the previous day. Again, 9am struck which meant its comp time! My first half hour was good, I had a nice bit of tree area to myself which seemed to provide carp after carp for a good 20 minuets. That was until dad made his way over and started hunting the same area. I swam a little wider and picked up a few more carp, the further i swam my luck was improving, landing more fish. The first spot for the day I picked up 10 fish and thought it was a pretty good start for the day, hoping it would continue. However, it didn’t. It seemed the carp and stripers played swaps because all we saw for a good few hours were a couple of odd carp and loads of STRIPERS! I couldn’t believe it. Frustration picked up during the day knowing there were so many carp the days we scouted but only the odd few in out spots on comp day. We had made the decision to head back to our first location thinking teams wouldn’t bother considering it had already been hit, but we thought we would try our luck. Jumping back in, I couldn’t load my gun fast enough, with only an hour to go I made my way through the tight gapes in the trees being quiet and waiting for the carp to appear. Lucky I picked up another 7 just before heading back in. Through out the day I got a total of 20 with a lot missed and lot getting off in the dense trees, all in the mad rush to land as many as possible.
Carp day was a lot more time consuming given the amount of fish being weighed but again, drama free and reasonably quick process for the amount of fish that had been captured. Every country did well and every one had a great time. A huge effort by the New Zeeland lady diver Gemma Shields on landing 36 carp on her own! Thats a lot of loading/reloading in one day and she picked up first place in the Ladies category. Every one had a fun day doing what we all love! And everyone got to get rid of some pesky carp while doing it.
Summed up, this event was well run and truly a great experience to be had by all. I ended up finishing 2nd in the Ladies division and although not doing too well in the mixed division, Dad and myself enjoyed ourselves regardless. Along with our good friends Bree and Craig and the rest of the Australian team, it was a fantastic time. I was also amazed and honoured to have met all the female divers at the event, simply privileged to have competed against so many talented ladies!
I am happy to say I have competed in the first ever Fresh Water Spearfishing Championships and I look forward to the Second take in 2019 in New Zealand!
