Two weeks before the WFSC 2023 I received a flattering invitation from the spear fishing legend Anne Doherty asking if I was interested in filling in for a team member in the competition. I hadn’t considered competing until then, but the opportunity to dive for 5-6 days in addition to the note from Anne was all I really needed to be SOLD on the idea. I suspected I was ill-equipped for a World Championship level competition as I had less than a year experience in the sport, but I am absolutely obsessed with it!
My dear husband provided immediate approval and support but we have four young kids, so my hero of a mother-in-law stepped right up to help watch the kids in my absence. Steve made all my travel plans to fly into Page AZ for my first spearfishing competition!
The first comp persons I met in Page were Mati and his wife, they spotted me from their car as I was walking on the shoulder of a major road towing my large green sport tube and suitcase, they flagged me down and gave me a ride the rest of the way to my hotel. They are as kind a couple as you could ever hope to meet!
The first night in Page I enjoyed dinner with a house full of amazing people. Each person welcomed me into spear world and gave me some great tips for competition. I especially enjoyed meeting Dale, seeing his love for the sport and its people was heartwarming to witness.
I had three scouting days diving alongside some fantastic volunteers. I was dropped in super fishy looking spots by my Capt. Greg Hall. My teammate Feena and I didn’t see as many gamefish as we would have liked so we didn’t have high hopes for our first day of competition. Hunting catfish, striper, and walleye would be a challenge because they seemed scarce.
On day one of competition I found a spot thick with tumbleweeds at 25 ft and had gotten a tip from my teammate Feena to patiently wait for the bluegills to fill in and get comfortable again then to watch for walleye and stripers to cruise thru. Three dives in a row I did as she said and as she said the target fish cruised on in but with each of the three shots I fired the flopper failed to hold the fish on my shaft and I lost 2 walleye and 1 striper! Heartbroken because I didn’t have a single fish in the boat at the time. I managed to switch spots and my flopper finally did its job and I secured a walleye and a nice catfish. Relived to have something to weigh in on day one.
Day two, carp day was the day I had been most excited about. Anne Doherty, on another women’s team lent me one of her guns and new float line then helped me rig a speed stringer. I ended up finding 20 of my 25 carp in shallow murky water with one foot visibility where my snorkel would flood with scum and I had to spit out chunks of surface debris. Call me crazy but I loved every minute spearing fish in that disgusting carp spot! Capt. Greg and Manny our champion deckhand were super efficient managing things for the two women’s teams on our boat. They shuffled us from spot to spot, unloading our massive carp, and checking in often to see what we needed. Unfortunately for about 1/2 of carp day I wasn’t seeing hardly any carp. I regret not taking a chance with longer boat ride to a wall I had scouted that had clean water and about 100 curious unspookable carp.
After weighing in on carp day I climbed up to admire the truck containing the competions nearly 4,000 lbs of speared carp and couldn’t resist the urge to get in there with them. As you could imagine it was quite the sensory experience! Not gonna lie, I enjoyed it! After a quick rinse at the fish cleaning station I considered myself presentable again.
Overall my teammate Feena and I managed to shoot enough fish both days to win the women’s team competition! Feena did well on gamefish day and even better on carp day, she really contributed a lot to the team win.
A hi-light of the week was meeting divers and telling fish stories. Greg’s houseboat was such a fun environment to get to know the volunteers and competitors. I had honestly been struggling in my first year of diving to find community in this sport and this week was so incredible in that regard. So many great divers that are such enjoyable people to be around. Brett Leable even let me call to pick his brain on his drive home and I got some valuable advice to help my husband and I improve our diving. I’ve been praying this year for people to learn from and dive with. Anne Doherty is absolutely an answer those prayers for a local dive buddy! I look forward to diving deeper into this sport. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to compete and greatly appreciate all the work that goes into making this competition such an epic one!
