Thanks Mike!! Awesome comp you did such a great job, also best over all atmosphere out of any comp I’ve been too – Friendly & relaxed.
Hope this is suitable, pics to follow.
I was lucky enough to attend the very first WORLD Freshwater spearfishing championship meet in Nevada 2017. This would be my second time competing in fresh water, the first being the USA Champs so I was looking forward to doing some more freshwater diving. I suffer from chronic seasickness so I am in my element in the freshwater with no current, no swell, no salt, no sharks, I love it!
I have a very busy full time job at a spearfishing shop in New Zealand so finding the time to get in a lake or sea to train before the comp proved difficult. We also don’t have any lake diving quite like it is in the USA so I couldn’t replicate the hunting I’d need to be practising. I made it my priority to at least get my ‘gills wet’ twice a week in the evenings attending freediving training to keep my fitness up and increase my breath hold as from my previous experience deep diving isn’t the key, it’s bottom time in around 20-30ft sitting still and waiting for fish to approach you.
As soon as we landed in Henderson, we headed straight for the lake. We bought a very strong team from New Zealand, specifically targeting each division of the comp. A strong men’s pair, our top NZ junior diver & a very experienced masters diver as well as myself. We wanted to get in as much scouting as we possibly could. Luckily for us, our team mate Scott moved to Missouri a few years back so had a fantastic boat he was able to bring to the comp to take us out in every day. It was big enough for all of us & FAST! We spent 6 days out on the water training, searching for fishy spots & practising techniques.
Scouting days weren’t without incident though, our junior developed equalising issues which restricted his diving, our masters diver had a rash from the heat & dryness of Nevada (or peeing in his suit everyday I think!!) And my partner for the comp/manager of our team/my dad pulled out with a chest infection (or because he’s getting soft in his old age!)
We did manage to cover lots of ground and felt quietly confident come comp day 1.
First day of the comp was striper only. I saw half a dozen striper a day on scouting days so didn’t expect finding 2 or 3 fish to be that difficult. Boy was I wrong. Devastation hit when I finished the day with a big fat zero! I only saw one in the entire 6 hours and that was a flash of silver disappearing in the bad visibility. Back on the boat, I found our two men divers did very well, Ian with the biggest striper of the day & Scott with a few in his bucket too. At the weigh in, I learned that numerous other people had just as bad of a day as I did, so felt I had a chance to make up for the poor performance the next day. Striper were worth 3 points each, the carp the next day worth 1 so with some divers only getting 2 or 3 striper it was definitely achievable to shoot that many more carp to get back up in the ranking.
Day 2 rolled around and I must add the weather for the comp days were exceptional. We had a few cold windy days on the water scouting so was a huge turn around having beautiful calm sunny weather for the comp. It must have made the boat drivers jobs a little more bearable too! As soon as the horn went, we raced to our SPOT X right at the other end of the lake. We only have a couple of boats tailing us which was awesome, we wouldn’t be swimming on top of each other like some of the other competitors may find themselves in the more popular areas.
Although carp are reasonably easy to shoot, you want to be swimming over fresh ground to find them. Once a spearo shoots a few times they all disappear so it’s vital you have some country to yourself.
I hopped into my first spot and started swimming. And swimming, and diving and swimming. Nothing! For the first 30mins I only saw 1 or 2 carp and had the horrible thought that I’d end up the same way as day one. My dad came over to check on me & see if I wanted to move spots, and told me the other guys on the boat were having similar luck. They only had 3 or 4 fish so we made the call to move. We all jumped back in on some different terrain (the first being flat sandy bottoms with some delicious looking grass, the new terrain was more rocky and with big underwater ledges) My first dive, 2 carp swam up to me and I nailed the smaller one. In this comp, the fish are worth the same points no matter what the weigh, so my game plan was that if I have the choice, I’ll choose the smaller fish as it’d be easier to handle and dispatch. Once I shot my first fish, I was away!! I made a mini goal of shooting 15 fish for the comp. Because of the lack of fish for the start of the day, I thought this would be realistic.
It worked out to be an awesome game plan to bring my float boat with me from New Zealand so I could get them out of the water and securely inside the boat. Carp are the most resilient little suckers I have ever hunted & proved incredibly difficult to kill if you didn’t get them in the exact right spot. Their bodies are almost like jelly fish (which makes it VITAL you shoot them in the head area or it’s likely your shaft will rip out) but their heads are as hard as coconuts. Iki-ing the fish to kill them was a very tricky thing to do. The trick was to get your knife in between their big scales and aim forwards into the brain. They were also very good at playing dead so I had a few hairy moments where I pulled them off the shaft to throw in the float boat only for them to spring back into life and try and swim away. The easy part was shooting them, dealing with the aftermath really wore me out. I really give it up to the guys that shoot 50+ fish as that would have been really hard work. As I got more tired, my shots were getting a little lazy so every time I shot a fish, I would let my gun go and race down towards it and grab it in a bear hug to secure it. Every fish was SO important, so by doing this I ensured they weren’t left to thrash around and rip off the shaft.
Near the end of the comp, my hands and arms were so tired from wrestling the fish I would find a rock sticking out of the water to sit on so I could deal with the fish and get them into my float boat.
Every time I emptied my float boat on the big boat, I made a new goal. ‘Just 5 more fish!!’ It blew my mind when I got to 30 fish, to be honest I didn’t think I could do it! The trick for me, was a lot of self encourage and reminding myself that I COULD do it, I just have to keep diving. My dad’s hilarious motto was also ringing in my head, ‘pain is temporary, glory is forever!!’ It felt particularly relevant as my arms were aching from wrestling fish all day!
By the end of the 6 hours I was completely worn out and it was a race back to the weigh in to see how everyone else went. There was talk of 100+ fish being expected by top competitors so I wasn’t confident I’d be any where near the top but felt very proud of myself as it was a huge personal achievement.
Seeing how some of the other divers went, I slowly realised my catch of 36 fish was looking very good! By the end of the weigh in it was confirmed, I had won the women’s division. I even managed 11 more carp than any other women competitor which was amazing. Over all, I even achieved 23rd place out of 67 divers.
This meet included 12 women competing from 6 different countries which is the largest turn out for women in any comp I’ve even been to. It was a very proud moment for women spearfishers. We all made some new awesome friends, and no doubt can not wait for the next competition!
Kind Regards,
Gemma Shields
